


Haven

by kaiannae



Category: Frostiron - Fandom, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Norse Religion & Lore, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), slave!loki - Fandom
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, But I promise he'll be there, Eventual Frostiron, F/M, Loki Needs a Hug, M/M, Mentions of Violence, More tags to be added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slave Loki, Slavery, Slow Build, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony doesnt deal with kids, crude language sometimes, parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-05-29 23:38:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 55,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6398887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaiannae/pseuds/kaiannae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony stark has a lot to deal with.<br/>A sporadically combusting sometimes-girlfriend and long-time friend, an obnoxiously persistent tendency to panic attack he refuses to call by its proper name, Shield and generally keeping the world in one piece.<br/>If there is anything he does NOT need, it's the surprise that lands on his sofa one early morning. </p><p>*This is my first work. I'm not exactly familiar with all the tags and stuff. My apologies. I'll work on that and add tags as we go<br/>*I dont know how often I'm going to update this. I have a hectic schedule. But its in the works.<br/>(Bear with me, its exam season. I'm writing in my very limited free time, but I never stop.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Surprises That Come Rudely Early in the Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, so this is my first fanfic, though I've been meaning to write this for a long time now. Please bear with me.

Tony hated mornings. As a rule of thumb, he preferred to skip them altogether. He hated the feel of under-caffeinated blood flowing sluggishly through his veins, the fuzzy feeling of a not-quite-rested brain coming back online that was often accompanied by the pounding of a hangover. There was not even the comfort of a warm body to wake up to, ever since he had decided to forgo the dubious pleasure of one night stands. Yes, he hated mornings and JARVIS well knew that, and yet the light of the new day hit his face obnoxiously as the windows turned clear and he just knew it was far too early for his liking. He groaned and turned over, pressing an arm over his eyes in an attempt to pretend he was never woken up so rudely.   
“Good morning sir. It is Monday the 23rd, the weather is clear, temperature is 16 degrees Celsius, waves are mild and the sea temperature...” He let the drawl of JARVIS's voice wash over him, a hum he knew well and could fall asleep to if he tried hard enough - “... it is now eight in the morning, sir, and I suggest you wake up and move to the living room.” Well, THAT cut right through his efforts to go back to bed as effectively as a knife.

"What?? Jay, buddy, friend, what the hell? Why would you do that to me?” he groaned, sitting upright with a creak of unused muscles. Damn, he had to get a cushion for his workbench. Or, well, stop spending several days in a row sitting motionlessly on it. “Wait- I have no meetings today that I totally forgot about, right?” oh hell, if he missed another meeting this month, Pepper would kill him.

"No sir,” Jarvis said drily “I would have taken care to warn you in advance had it been so, despite the futility of the action,” he exclaimed, to which Tony rolled his eyes.

"Quit the sass. It's too early for this shit. In fact, it's too early for anything. If I don't have to be up to make nice with the board, why the hell am I up?” he asked irritably. He needed a coffee. No, he needed to go back to bed and wake up in a decent hour.

"Because, sir, I think it prudent that you head to the living room.” There was an edge to JARVIS's voice that was unusual, and it made alarm bells ring in Tony's head.

"Jarv, what? What's in the living room?” he asked, rising to his feet as he spoke. He didn't know why but the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end and he was starting to feel something was very wrong.

"Sir, it seems we had a- security breach.”

"Fuck.” Tony was up and rolling into his clothes before the echoes of JARVIS's voice faded. His bracelets weren't on his wrists. WHY did he not think to sleep with his bracelets? Well, he'll have to get to them. Fortunately, they were in his living-room. Unfortunately, they were on the table. Well, he'd managed to wriggle out of this kind of home invasion once, he'll do so again. With a final deep breath, he slunk into the living-room.

 

 

Which was empty, or so it seemed. Tony spent a good few minutes scanning the room with his eyes before creeping forward to grab the bracelets and snap them around his wrists. He expected an attack, but nothing happened.

"JARVIS?” he asked pointedly. He had not programmed the AI to be capable of pranking him. If he somehow learned how on his own, the implications would be dire.

"It seems the intruder is no longer in the building,” the AI noted calmly.

"The fuck? Why would whoever it was intrude just to leave without doing anything?” This day was getting weirder by the moment. Either someone thought he was funny and was pranking him, or well, he didn't know what to think.

"That is inaccurate, sir.” JARVIS piped in.

"Huh?”

"There was something left behind,” he elaborated.

"What? Where?”

"Behind you.” Tony jumped as if electrified, spinning so fast he was Dizzy for a second, his eyes zipping frantically to and fro in search of the item the AI was talking about. He didn't have to look far. On the sofa behind him, resting heavily on the cushions, was what seemed like a basket. A **wicker** basket. He took an instinctive step back and almost fell over the coffee table behind him because fuck it, he had had enough experience with things blowing up in his face to last a lifetime.

"Jarv-” he started, pointing accusingly at the basket. Come on. JARVIS should have warned him.

"Sir, scans indicate no harmful contents. There is no harmful radiation, gas or other substance within or on the basket,” JARVIS assured him. His shoulders relaxed, and he decided his looming migraine could be avoided after all.

"Huh. Odd little fruit basket. Coming here and leaving his basket behind,” he muttered, reaching for a screwdriver left strewn on the coffee table who knows how many days before. Contrary to common belief, he was usually quite careful of his tools and kept them organized. That his order seemed like chaos to others was another matter entirely and not of his concern. However, some tools tended to migrate around his personal space every now and then. He used the tool like a stick, reaching to poke lightly at the basket.

 

And then the basket moved. On its **own**.

"Kyaa! JARVIS! You told me there was nothing dangerous-” his words were quite effectively cut by a wail. A wail which made the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and was coming from **inside the fucking basket**.

"No. No no oh HELL no!” he backtracked as fast as he could go, until his back collided with the hard wood of the bar. Which was good because he needed a drink. Hell, he needed a dozen, just as soon as his hands stopped shaking.

"JARVIS, buddy, friend, please tell me that's not what I think it is. Please PLEASE tell me it's some kind of prank- Clint! Damn Hunger Games did it, right? Tell me you're pulling my leg because if I was ever close to a heart attack this takes it by a mile!” he felt pinpricks in his chest as his panting stretched the flesh around his Arc reactor. His chest seemed heavy, as if the casing of the reactor was burrowing into his lungs and-he-was-not-having-a-heart-attack-over-a-BASKET!

"I'm afraid I cannot do that, Sir. The basket seems to be holding an infant within it. I do suggest you tend to it or the wailing is bound to grow worse,” the AI reported drily. Tony stopped breathing altogether for a whole moment and his blood froze in his veins.

"Oh no, no. I'm not touching that thing with a ten foot pole. Hell no.” He retreated behind the bar and poured himself a drink with shaking hands, leaning against the polished surface to steady his suspiciously jelly like legs. He downed a glass of one of his better bottles of scotch without noting the taste, then another in quick succession. The drinks steadied his hands but did nothing to get rid of the brick that settled in his stomach. He buried his head in his hands, letting his fingers rake through his own hair.

"How?” he asked hoarsely. “How did this happen?! I've been so careful! I'm always careful! How did- who- when- and wait. Wait, HOW the hell did it even get here?” he raised his head, suddenly far more disturbed by that question than by the presence of a- a baby- oh god help him. Fuck. He was NOT thinking about this right now. There were more pressing issues. “JARVIS? How the fuck did it get here?” he inquired sharply. The silence seemed to grow uncharacteristically long before the AI answered.

"I.... do not know.” he said hesitantly. If computer programs could sound disturbed, Tony would say that's exactly what was happening. For that matter, so was he.

"What do you mean, you don't know?!” he demanded.

"It seems... as if one moment it was not there, and the next, it was,” Tony hated the careful hesitation in JARVIS's voice. The AI never lacked confidence, even if he lacked an answer. This was disconcerting. “Sir... it seems that something is off with my logs. I must conclude that my protocols have been breached and I am compromised.” Tony pursed his lips, trying to tune out the wailing that still filled the room. Damn baby had healthy lungs, at least. The thought that someone managed to tamper with JARVIS made his blood boil. It was blasphemy.

"Fuck. Big ol' cluster of fucks. Jarv, run a full scan. Quarantine anything even mildly suspicious. Highlight any changes made less than a week ago and order according to vitality. Initiate 'panic room' protocol and tell me as soon as you have a dump file.” He rubbed a palm over his face, pressing hard enough to bruise. Great. Just great. As if he didn't have enough on his mind, now he had to deal with an apparently mental ex with a surprising set of skills. That or a set of skilled allies. Trust him to find the kind of girl to hack into his famously un-hackable system just to saddle him with a baby- ack, and he was thinking about it again. In the background, the baby kept wailing with surprising devotion. It was making it hard to think straight. Tony rubbed his face even harder, feeling the start of a headache pounding in his head.

"Shut up. Shut up she up shut UP!” he raised his voice with every repeat until he was shouting, covering his ears with his hands in a desperate attempt to block the noise. He was not ready for this. He could not do it. Tony Stark doesn't DO children. Ever!

"Sir, I suggest you tend to the child. It is the surest way to make the noise stop and the child IS under your care,” JARVIS advised.

"Less talk, more diagnostics!” Tony shot, narrowing his eyes at one of the AI's cameras. But he did push himself away from the counter and made his way towards the couch, dragging his feet like a man led to the gallows. Fine. He'll see to the child, get the little fog horn to shut up, and then find a way to take this off his hands. He needed to find the mother. Enough of his money is sure to keep the mother off his back and the child cared for, away from him. Yes, that's what he'll do. And he would not feel guilty about it, not at all.

"Really, kid, you're better off away from me. My old man wasn't 'father of the year' material and so far there's nothing in my record to show I'll be better at it. Better off not messing you up any- well hello, you look nothing like me,” he halted his nervous tirade as he finally peeked over the rim of the basket.   
  
A pair of clear, emerald eyes returned his gaze, surprisingly focused for the gaze of an infant. The crying gained an impatient edge, as if saying 'well finally! What kept you!' Demanding little tyke.

"Well, buddy, let's try to make this as painless for both of us as possible?” he murmured as he reached gingerly into the basket, trying to find a way to hold the kid in a way that won't break or squish anything. He was **really** no good at this. Really. With a deep, steadying breath, he hooked his arms under the small arms and lifted.

"Whoa, head!” right. Babies had wiggly heads. He rearranged his hold into something acceptable and hoisted the infant into the air, holding it awkwardly, not unlike as if he was handling a live bomb. Heavens forbid he dropped it. Making small, anxious sounds because damn-it-he-wasn't-happy-about-any-of-this, he maneuvered himself onto the couch and put the baby in his lap. Bomb diffused. For now. The emerald gaze seemed unimpressed with him, but the child did stop its wailing as soon as it was in his hold, as if all it wanted was the touch and warmth of another. Well, at least now he could think. That is, if he could keep from freaking out for just a bit longer.

"Ok. ok. ...fuck.” he said again, then winced, looking down at the child in his arms. “Sorry, kid. See? I'm no good for you. Really atrocious. Crappy father. Sorry. Yup. Shutting up.” yup, he was losing it. He needed to sort this out. He needed the voice of reason. He needed... Pepper. With a sigh, he lifted his phone from the coffee table.

"Yes, this is going to be a lovely conversation,” he said conversationally to the baby before pressing Dial.   
  
“Tony,” Pepper's voice was neutral when she finally answered the phone, but cautious. He winced. Yes, lovely conversation ahead. Well, to be honest, it was way too early in the morning for anything work related coming from him and pepper well knew that. Usually he only called her at Tony-odd hours when he was drunk. Thank god she answered at all.

"Hey Pep. No, it's not work related.” he started.

“Tony, we've talked about this-”  
“No, I'm not drunk,” surprisingly enough, he was sure she was thinking. “Well I did have a drink but I swear, not remotely drunk. Pep, something happened,” he hoped he didn't sound as close to panic as he actually was. He probably couldn't fool Pepper though.

"Tony, are you alright? Is something- are you hurt? Is the tower under attack?” she sounded more than concerned. He felt a painful pang in his heart, as if a shard had brushed too close. He and Pepper had agreed to give each other more space after the Killian incident. They loved each other, they probably always would, and they were good friends. But Pepper had to get used to her new body, her new power, and sporadic combustion wasn't exactly helpful for his state of his panic attacks. After a few near calls they decided to take a step back. Rather, Pepper decided and he agreed eventually. Didn't mean he didn't make some embarrassing drunken calls he wished never happened. He was an adult man for fuck's sake. Aaaaanyway. Now was not the time for all that emotional mess. However, it was reassuring to know she still cared.

"Pep, I'm fine. Relatively. No one's bleeding and there is no threat. Right now. I think. Look- I really need you to come over. As in right now,” Yeah, he was making things so much better.

"Tony, we've talked about this, me, combustion, melting things-”

"No, look, Pepper, this is an emergency. Not the life threatening kind of emergency but- well in some ways **so** much worse. I **need** you.” and that didn't sound desperate at all. He groaned quietly, startling as the baby stirred in his arms. The little tyke was looking at him intently throughout the whole conversation. It was kinda disturbing.

"Look, Tony, I'm not playing that game. Tell me what's going on. Right now.” the dryness in her voice sent a chill down his spine. This was her CEO voice, the one she reserved for troublesome reporters and employees. He was treading dangerous ground.

"Pepper, please. This can't be more important!” and this is NOT how he wanted to broach the subject, but- “I have a BABY in my lap!”

 

Silence. It filled the line for a few long minutes, during which the baby was watching him with the same too-sharp-for-an-infant unimpressed look, as if saying 'well, you handled that one marvelously.' which frankly was rude. And unfair. And he needed this child off his hands because that sounded so loony-bin worthy.

"A-A baby?” Pepper sounded weak. He hoped she was sitting down. “Tony what did you DO?” Hay! That wasn't fair! It wasn't **his** fault! Well, sort of. Partly. But that was beside the point!

"Nothing! Well, obviously **something** , at some point, but I swear I didn't see this coming!” and this was not helping.

"Tony. Stop. Backtrack. Explain.” how pepper could sound so calm so fast was beyond him, but her grounding orders helped.

"Look, you know how careful I am. I NEVER fool around with things like this. But at some point I must have slipped? I don't know! I only know that at some point during the night some crazy chick went through all the trouble of hacking through JARVIS to leave this baby in a basket on my sofa, and I don't do kids and I don't know how she got past JARVIS and I don't want to be awake right now and how the hell did I manage to **slip** and- “

" **Breath**! Tony, breath. I'll be there in 20 minutes, we'll sort this out.” the change of background noise told him she was already mobile and moving out of the room she was in.

"Pep, I swear I don't know how this happened, I don't even remember sleeping with a tech-wiz or- I don't know- crazy type, in fact I stopped doing this completely a bit after Afghanistan- hey! Wait a minute! I'm not an expert, but this kid looks a bit young to be old enough to be created in that period... then what- what's going on here?!” he was losing it. He could feel the panic gnawing at his chest, making the metal in his chest burn like a hot coal, making every breath a feat of strength.

"Deep breaths! Deep, slow breaths. I'm coming, I'll be there soon and we'll get to the bottom of this. I promise. Just- don't do anything rash, don't disappear and don't drop the baby.” He could hear her clicking heels over the line, and the sounds of the street as he took measured breaths. “I have to go. Stay calm.” The line clicked. He put the phone back on the table and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think of calming things. How the hell did Bruce do this?

The baby in his lap stirred again and made a small, unhappy noise.

"No, come on kid. Don't start crying again, please. I don't think I can take that right now,” he groaned. But the baby didn't cry. Now that his attention was back on it, it seemed to settle again.

"Damn, you have a sharp look for a kid,” he murmured. Now that pepper was on her way, carrying in her wings the promise of sorting this all out and making it better he calmed down gradually, enough so that his curiosity and need to examine and tinker awoke again. He took a closer look at the child. Apart from those striking eyes, it had a soft mop of downy black hair that made him think of black goose chicks. It was bundled in a simple linen cloth, so well that he could hardly see anything but its head and tiny fists, yet it was a simple wrap and not a baby outfit of any kind, which was odd. Curious now, he pulled at the cloth gently, unwrapping it from the baby's body to reveal more soft, porcelain skin. There waited another surprise; there was no diaper on the baby. Well, not a normal, nylon and cotton byproducts one. It was wrapped in what looked like a cloth diaper, the kind he seemed to remember people used in third world countries or before the modern one was invented. Untying that, he made another discovery.

"Huh. Alright. You're a girl. I sort of wasn't expecting that. Not that it matters, mind you, I'm not looking for a male heir or anything, I'm good with you just as well for being a girl that is, it doesn't really change anything either-, well, you know what I mean.” he wrapped the baby back up as best as he could, clearly NOT avoiding her eyes thank you very much. With a grunt, he shifted her to rest on the crook of his arm, finding it a much more comfortable position, and stretched to pull the basket to him. He had hoped the infant's clothes would reveal more about her and more importantly, about her mother. Clothes tags could sometimes lead to stores and stores to information, or he could have found something else, some hint- but clearly, the simple linen would not help him, apart for confusing him even more. Considering that fact he had no high hopes for the basket, but he needed to be thorough.

 

The basket was padded with more of the linen, folded and bunched to create a comfortable nest for the child. White, it was all white, not unlike linens used to shroud the deceased. He shuddered.

"Your mom is one weird psycho, that's for sure. Sorry kid,” he liked the idea of returning the child to her mother a bit less in light of that thought. He'd see what Pepper had to say about it.

The basket, of course, was empty apart from the linen. He wrinkled his nose. So much for that, and now he had both baby and a pile of white linen in his lap. He pulled at the cloth and started shoving to back into the basket, handful by handful. There were miles of the thing. The baby fussed in his arms all the while. Clearly, she didn't like the basket.   
“Don't worry baby, I'm not putting you back there. It's scratchy and probably icky and besides I'm afraid to drop you in the process so no. we're going to stay on the nice, solid couch. Hey what'cha got there?” with the last handful of cloth shoved back into the basket something remained in his lap, rolling to rest on the baby's chest. He took hold of it gingerly. “A letter? You've got to be kidding me.” he flipped the folded bundle to and fro noting that the material it was written on was thicker than paper. Not paper? “Hmm. Why hide it then? I could have missed it entirely. What IS it with this woman?” he shook his head. Well, it was something. With a sigh, he shifted the baby in his lap and opened the folded sheet.   
“Whoa. Odd ink. And is that parchment?” the sheet was filled with neat handwriting, the ink not black but a rusty brown, flaky in some places.   
“Sir. That is blood.” came JARVIS's voice, a slight hint of alarm in his tone.

"Ugh!” with a sound of shocked disgust, tony let the letter drop. The sheet fluttered down and landed between his legs, writing up.   
The next moment, Loki stood before him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 17/5/16 Update: I did a round of editing and fixed a few typos and mistakes that bugged the hell out of me. If you stll see someithng amiss, I'd love to hear it.


	2. Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Oven?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all those who have dedicated time to comment: Thank you Thank you Thank you. Comments and reviews are the life-blood of my drive to write. It really helps when you know people are waiting to read more. 
> 
> A few things are revealed int his chapter, yet more remain shrouded. Please see end notes.

"Ahh!” Tony jumped. Well, anyone would have jumped if the megalomaniac psycho that threw them out of a window suddenly stood before them. He clutched the child to him out of instinct and leaned back, wishing he could get away from the god who was standing way, way too close to him for comfort, almost on top of the letter now resting on the floor.

No, actually exactly on top of it. And that was the moment Tony noticed he could see the other side of the room through the god's flesh.

"Anthony Stark, do not be alarmed. I mean you no harm, hard though it may be to believe,” even his voice sounded hollow. A hologram of some kind? A projection?

"Loki! What are you doing-” he sputtered breathlessly, but the god seemed oblivious to his existence. The apparition's eyes were fixed forward, not quite on Tony himself but seemingly beyond him.

"Hear me, I beseech you! I do not have much time.” Huh. This Loki sounded nothing like the one he remembered from the battle that took place in this same living-room during the battle of New York. His voice lacked the echo of power, the arrogance of a man raised in a position of power, used to others deferring to his rank. He sounded tired, haggard and almost anxious. It was then Tony noticed the changes in his appearance as well. Gone were the leather outfit and the helmet. He wore a tunic of simple linen, a material not finer than the wrap the baby came in, and matching pants. His feet were clad in simple slips. Gone was the long, flowing hair. It was now cut as short as the nape of the god's neck, wild and matted as if the god had not seen a bath for quite a while. Those things on their own did not alarm Tony. After all, the man was supposed to be a prisoner in Asgard. It was only fitting he would be dressed as one.

But then why was a hologram of him standing in his living-room? There was something more here, something that nagged at him. Loki had been thin before. Now he seemed even more gaunt and to his astonishment, Tony thought he could see bruises darkening his skin, even scarring. And- was that blood on his shirt? Didn't the man heal in a matter of moments from injuries that would kill a human? Something was wrong with the god, very wrong. But what disturbed him most was the look in the god's eyes. Even at the peak of his deranged ravings, Loki had a certain shine in his eyes, a spark of life and mischief ready to spark into a wildfire of chaos if given the right incentive. That spark was gone now, replaced with a dull, lifeless abyss of desolation and within it, a well hidden despair he could still detect because there were times in his life he had looked in the mirror and seen it in his own eyes. He had it glimmering sickly behind the masks he had put up for his friends, when he knew he was dying and though there was nothing he could do in time to save himself. What had sparked such despair in the once proud god of mischief? He never thought he would see something bring fear to the god's eyes, but it was there, shining barely concealed in his dark eyes. The sight chilled him to the bone.

He took all that in during the moment of silence he was given, because in the next moment Loki was speaking again and Tony strained not to miss anything because he had the distinct feeling this was a one time show.

  
“Man of Iron, I know well the reasons of your resentment of me, and those of your shield brothers. I do not deny my actions, nor my guilt and I would never have sought to gain audience with you had I any other way. But I will ask for your forbearance for one who is innocent of my crimes. It is not in my nature to beg, yet I implore you, Anthony Stark. Please,” the despair in Loki's voice grew stronger as he spoke and before Tony realized what was happening, the apparition sank to its knees. Tony Gaped. Loki, kneeling? He couldn't believe his own eyes.

“I beg you on my knees for my daughter's life. She is guilty of nothing save for being born of my flesh. She is not to blame for my deeds, nor for the way she was conceived and yet here, she would be judged as my daughter and only as that. I was allowed to give birth to her only to lose her. I have lost too much, too many,” the god's hands clenched into fists “I will not see the death or enslavement of another child. And so it has come to this. You hate me, Anthony Stark. And yet you had it in your heart to offer an enemy a drink and try to reason with him. It is my belief you would not judge a babe by the deeds of its ancestors. You are my only hope, slim as it may be. I beg of you, Take the child and hide her. She must not fall to the hands of my once kin. Find a safe place for her, perhaps a family that would accept her into their midst. A place where she would be- happy,” the wistful note in the god's voice was heartbreaking, as was the minute shake of his fisted hands.

And- this was not good at all. Oooh no! Tony gave himself a mental shake. This was Loki! He was a bastard! He killed dozens of people in his rampage, he destroyed New York, he killed Agent Coulson! And- and surprisingly, he was a good parent. A parent who would not stoop to begging on his own behalf, but would fall to his knees for the life of his child. For her happiness.

“I only ask that you arrange for a place where she would be safe. I ask not for anything beyond that,” the apparition Loki worried the hem of his tunic. “Would that I had anything to give you, I would have given it in barter for her safety. I would have given you myself, to take your revenge upon me for my transgressions against your realm. Yet I cannot. I write this message with my own blood in lack of ink. After I finish this spell message I will attempt to break away from my cell and bring the child to you, then I will draw my pursuers away from her scent. Asgard cannot find her by spell. I made sure of that. Yet if I wish to keep her safe, I cannot be near her again.” Suddenly the hologram Loki startled, something drawing his attention to the side. “I must go. I am your enemy, Stark. Yet the child is not. I beseech you to remember this when you make your decision. I leave her in your hands, along with everything I hold dear in life. Fare thee well.” With these words the apparition faded, leaving Tony to stare down at the parchment, covered in desperate words written by his enemy in his own blood. Tony reached hesitantly to pick it up.

Just as his fingers were about to touch it, the parchment ignited. He snatched his hand back as green flames enveloped the letter, consuming it with speed borne of magic until nothing was left. He stared at the now empty carpet suspiciously for another moment, waiting to see if the God didn't have anything else up his sleeve, then sank back against the sofa with a sigh.

"Fuck,” he said with emotion, holding the girl to him. “Did you get that, J?”  
“Of course, Sir.”  
“Save everything to my private server, please. No one is going to believe me unless I have this.” he shook his head. “Kid, you're more messed up than I thought. **Loki's** child? And he's your **mother**? How is that even- ugh. I hate magic. And now all of magic fairyland is after your little head. Talk about a complicated upbringing,” he stared down at the babe in his arms, his chest slowly filling with a whole new kind of trepidation.  
“Well, guess I didn't slip up after all. That's relieving. I HAVE been careful, I knew I was.” It meant this wasn't his daughter, which was a relief. He really had no chance of being a good father. But it also meant there was no psycho Ex. Well, psycho there was, but he had not dipped his fingers into THAT particular pool, thank god. Which was good, he guessed, yet he was slowly coming to realize that there would be no convenient mother to please with money as he returned the child to her care. What was he going to do with her? The child, on her part, was still watching him with that assessing look of hers.

"Well, now that I know, I can really see the resemblance. Trust Loki to have a daughter with looks that can maim. Hey aren't you supposed to sleep a whole lot? You're a baby, stop looking at me like a judge at a DUI hearing and close those eyes. Come on,” without realizing he was doing so, he started rocking the child in his arms, watching as the eyes lost their assessing sharpness and turned almost meditative, then finally the small eyelids closed.

He really didn't know how he was feeling about all this. To be suddenly saddled with the life and death decision over the life of a child, and Loki's child no less! The child of a mass murderer, a would be conqueror and quite likely a raving lunatic at some point in his life, though to tell the truth, Loki looked saner than he had ever seen him in that hologram. But for once, Loki was actually right. The child was not him, had not even lived during the battle for New York, yet he could well see how some people would judge her by her heritage. Hell, he'd been judged and viewed as 'Howard's son' so many times before he had developed a tendency to do the opposite of what that heritage entailed just to spite them. She could have no life in Asgard, where Loki was infamous for his deeds, even if the Allfather didn't have it in for her. It didn't help that she kinda looked like her 'mother'. Even on earth, she ran the risk of being viewed in a disfavorable light. He wasn't even sure how his own team would see her. Damn, he could imagine Clint being nasty just to make a point.

Yet the question remained; was he really going to involve himself in this? This was not his child, and he had only Loki's arguably fickle word for the state of things. The easiest thing to do would be to wait for someone from Asgard to appear and give them the baby, to be taken back to her grandparents and uncle. Surely Thor would not hurt a baby, right?

But... then he remembered the **look** in Loki's eyes. That bottomless pit of despair. The god had stooped to groveling in order to secure his help for the child. The man was the god of lies, but even he would not go to such lengths for a mere ruse. That look was the look of a parent pleading for his child's life while knowing he was doomed. He had seen it before. They all have, in their line of work. There was no way to fake that.

So, yeah. Magic Vikingland- most likely off the table. He could be a jerk, many people would testify to the fact, but he could not send a baby to a fate likened to death.

"Nah. I'll find you a place to crash that'll be safe, kid. This, I can do,” he said quietly, watching the sleeping girl. She was surprisingly peaceful now that she was asleep and her eyes no longer pierced his soul. She looked as serene as only a baby could be. Which was unfair, really. If he'd ever be this peaceful when he slept, he'd be dead. Which reminded him how rudely early he'd been woken. He yawned and leaned back, squirming into a more comfortable position on the couch and being very careful not to wake the infant. The room was quiet save for the near silent breathing of the sleeping girl, and the soft flutter of a tiny heartbeat against his chest was oddly relaxing. He blinked heavily, each blink taking longer and longer as his consciousness sank towards the oblivion of sleep.  
  
“Sir,”

He jumped. Just as he was about to take the final plunge and leave consciousness behind and give in to the tempting call of his disturbed sleep, the AI broke the silence.

"Damn, Jay, warn a guy will you? Almost had a heart attack!” he wheezed.

"The Dump file is ready, Sir. You specifically requested to be notified as soon as it was so. Diagnostics are also complete, and if I may add, Sir, there is no way in which I can 'warn a guy' without engaging in some form of vocalization or visual display, which would require additional warning,” JARVIS pointed drily. Tony rolled his eyes.  
“Yeah, yeah, apology accepted, now get me the Dump file, and I want the sensor readings from the estimated time of the breach. We know its Loki, but I want to know HOW he did it. If he can fool my sensors, others can as well.”  
He spent the next ten minutes going through the report and the sensor readings, then through the visual footage. JARVIS seemed disturbed by the fact he could not detect any anomaly in the sensors.

"The heat sensors sensed nothing. In fact the temperature readings dropped slightly, where they should have risen at his presence. It seems he has no heat signature, Sir. As for the visual sensors, they also detected nothing. And yet-” the footage on the big screen before the sofa flickered and raced forward, then slowed again. One moment, it displayed the empty living-room. In the next, the wicker basket rest on the couch.  
“Damn it! He couldn't have messed with the recording. He's a fucking space Viking from fairyland! He doesn't have the knowledge needed! Then how....” his leg started bouncing and he forced it down. He itched to jump up and start pacing, but didn't want to disturb the child in his arms. She was blissfully quiet and frankly, he wasn't sure how to transfer her back to the basket in one piece.

"Hm. Jarv, run this frame by frame for me, will ya? I invested in high density, high frame-rate cameras for a reason. There must be **something** there,” he insisted. The view on the big screen changed again, running frame by frame in a fraction of the normal speed. “There! Stop!” Tony leaned forward, staring at the frozen scene before him. The god had indeed been there, and had somehow managed to manipulate wither the technology or his own visibility, but there he was, frozen on the screen, standing before the sofa and carrying the basket. “Forward.”

But there wasn't much to see. Three frames forward, the god disappeared from view again. It was a fraction of a second worth of footage, but it was there. Tony narrowed his eyes. “Jay, I have a hunch. Grab me the same frame index out of the following second.” Ha! He was a called a genius for a reason! “There's the bastard! I don't know how he did it, but he managed to manipulate his visibility to only a fraction of each second! Talk about stealth mode!” Tony knew he should have been furious, but the mere concept excited him. He was intrigues by the method used. It was probably magic, but Tony was adamant in his belief that Magic was just another word for esoteric science. Yes, and he could **do** science.

"Jay, open a new project, codename 'invisibility cloak'. This should be interesting.” He wanted to get up and head for his lab, but- yeah, baby. “I still don't know what to say about the heat sensors. I probably CAN do something about the visual based alarms though. I foresee an upgrade in your future Jarv. Fun times! But that'll have to wait because Pep's about to be here any minute and oh GOD what am I going to tell her?!” and, there. Panic was back. Great. He really wasn't sure how Pepper was going to react to the fact wanted, mental war criminal had breached his security and set foot in the tower, not to mention the baby thing. He didn't even want to **think** of how she's react to the baby thing, especially since she had a recently developed tendency to set the furniture on fire. His inability to solve that problem with Extremis annoyed him to no end, but Pepper was adamant that she would not be a test subject. He had been able to make it stable enough to avoid turning her into a live bomb, and that was enough for her. It didn't meant she didn't have challenges left to tackle. Learning to control both her strength and her- fiery reactions, was an ongoing process with numerous setbacks. He sensed this was going to cause one of them.

"Note to self, keep at least one article of furniture between Pepper and the baby,” he muttered.

 

As if on cue, the elevator dinged.

"Fuck.” Tony covered his eyes with his free hand. He heard the fast staccato of heels coming his way, the sound both familiarly reassuring and stressing, considering it fell to him to explain this epic mess. “Hi, Pepper,” he groaned, his voice muffled by his hands. The heels stopped, but the silence persisted for a long moment.

"Huh,” came Pepper's voice at last. “There actually IS a child. That's- alarming.” He snorted and opened his eyes just as she sat down.  
“Try it from this side. You'll see 'alarming'. God.” he shook his head, trying not to look as guilty as he was still feeling for some reason. It **wasn't. His. Child.** For once, he wasn't the one who had messed up. He just- didn't know what to tell her, and he **knew** how this looked like. He wasn't **good** at- people stuff. “Err- I- can explain?” Great. As if THAT wasn't the mother of all clichés. Pepper blinked slowly and took a deep, calming breath. He had learned to be wary of such signs. The hard way.

"Look, its- complicated. It all started when JARVIS woke me up this morning and I found this basket on my sofa, and the baby inside it. I thought- I-” he stopped. What should he tell her? Should he stick to the psycho ex story? It would almost be easier than the other option, and safer for the baby. But- would it be fair to Pepper? Could he lie to her again? He could but- he didn't **want** to. Look what happened last time. He couldn't do that to her again. Plus, he had promised. He decided.

"Pep, I know I promised not to lie to you again, and I don't want to. I will tell you what's going on, but I need your promise, right here, right now, that you won't tell anyone without my consent, and you won't go to Shield with this,” he said at last, his tone firm and sober, the kind of tone he only ever used when situation was dire or it was a matter of life and death.  
“Tony, you're frightening me. What's wrong? Why are Shield connected to this? Is something-”  
“Promise me, Pepper. I mean it. It's important, and it involves the safety of this baby.” Pepper eyed him oddly and he realized he was clutching the child to him again, almost curled around her. “Do you trust me, Pep?” he asked. In the end, it all came down to this. Pepper sighed.  
“Tony, of course I do. Fine, I promise. I won't tell anyone, I won't go to shield. Now please tell me what the hell is going on because this stress is bad for the integrity of your furniture,” she said.

 

And he told her. He told her about his rude awakening, about the shock of finding the baby in his living-room, of his panic at thinking it was his... and about Loki. Her alarm was clear as he got to that part, but she contained herself- both verbally, emotionally and thankfully, Extermis-wise. When he finally finished, his throat was dry and he could feel a migraine panging its first signs of life behind his eyeballs.  
“Tony, Loki was here, **Loki** , and you didn't contact Shield, or at least called the Avengers? He breached your personal apartment!” Pepper's tone was exasperated.

"No, no, I said no. No Avengers, especially not Shield. Pepper, this is a baby! Sure, she's Loki's kid, but she's not him! I can't have them cart her off to some Shield facility to be raised like a lab rat,” he said defensively.

"You believe Loki? He has shown how well he can lie and turn the hearts of people.” Tony shook his head.

"He had that **look** in his eyes, Pepper. I wouldn't want anyone to feel like that, not even him. I can't even explain it but he looked- at the edge of a cliff, ready to plunge down. I know it's hard to believe, but when you see it, you'll see what I mean. Jarv, get the footage of the hologram on screen for me please.”

  
He watched Pepper's expression change as she watched Loki's monologue. She grew quiet and still and her eyes grew large. That's when he knew that she got it. She leaned back with a huff as the screen grew dark, keeping the silence for a moment more. Tony knew how she felt. He watched this for the second time and the impact hadn't lessened at all.

"I- see what you mean,” she admitted at last, raising a hand to rub at her temples for a long moment. Then she straightened and fixed Tony with one of her looks, the looks that made him feel like he did when the old professors at MIT tested him because come on, a 15 year old could not beat them at their own game, right? Which he totally nailed, by the way, but it didn't mean he didn't sweat and had a few moments of anxiety before every exam. When pepper grew all serious and no-nonsense, she could take all those professors by stride. “And I realize the circumstances. Which- leads to the question. Tony,” he tone was grave, “What are you going to do about the baby?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, as you can see, though Loki IS a part of this story, he wont appear in the next couple of chapters. I'm sorry, I really want to bring him back as an active character, but a few things need to happen before that. So please bear with me. I promise we'll see him again. To tell you more will be spoilers so I'll keep my mouth shut. XD
> 
> 17/5/16 Update: did a round of editing. I fixed a few typos and mistakes that bugged me. If you still see something amiss, please tell me.  
> I also seperated a few long paragraphs into smaller chunks as per reviews.


	3. Of Space Viking Culture and Decision Making

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thank you people! I cant believe the reactions to this fic. its been a while since I"ve written someithng that's been appreciated and I must tell you, this warms my heart.
> 
> Kudos to Laura_trekkie who is mostly spot on in her guesses and anlysis, which makes me excited about actually writing the next chapters.  
> I did say Loki was not going to appear in this chapter, but there is much talk OF him.  
> Also, I'm so sorry Loki.

Tony winced. He had hoped they wouldn't get to that question so soon. Partly because he didn't have any answer. Partly because he didn't WANT to make that decision. Pepper watched him silently as he tried to come up with a verbal answer that won't be too obvious an evasion. When the silence lengthened, she made a face.

"Look, Tony, this really isn't our business. The baby is not yours, and you can't hide her from her own family. That would be kidnapping!” she said pointedly and damn it, he knew she was right. Of course he did. But the remembered anguish in the god's eyes was still fresh in his mind. ' _I beg of you, Take the child and hide her. She must not fall to the hands of my once kin._ '

"I don't know Pep. Loki seemed terrified of letting them have her and I haven't seen many things that can make a god afraid,” he offered, surprised at how defensive his tone sounded. The child stirred in his arms, her eyelids fluttering in a dream and he shifted his hold on her before daring to look up at Pepper again.

"Tony, they are her **family**. I know they live in a different world, but I can't imagine they would hurt a baby. She has done nothing and she's their blood!” Pepper persisted. And yet, he could still hear the god's words. ' _I have lost too much, too many._ ' ' _I will not see the death or enslavement of another child._ ' Death and enslavement. What a fucking perfect family.

"I'm not so sure, Pep. And if you want to play the 'blood is thicker than water' card? Well, if what Thor said is true Loki is actually adopted, so kid's not really their blood. They'd be stuck with an adopted granddaughter whose father is, how to say, a bit of a mar on the family name? Yeah. I can see how that would be a problem and I've known a few people who would have started thinking of quiet disappearances at that point. Wouldn't even put it past dear old Howard and he's pure human,” he snorted. Yeah, dear old pops was very precise about what a Stark was and wasn't, and what he could and couldn't do and be. He wasn't even counting Obi. Yup, in fact, he was trying very hard not to think of Obi right now. “I mean have you SEEN the Eddas? I'm not exactly a literature major but I had to take this course at MIT... something about cultural courses are good for the soul, yadda yadda... anyway, teacher was hot for the Norse mythology. Pep, these damn poems are miles long, but they kinda stick with you. Jarv, if you will?” he waved at one of the AI's cameras. The screen lit with some internet page. “Err... let me remember. There was something with- the twins? I remember that was quite grim. Scroll down to the part with the twins,” he instructed. Who knew this course would ever serve for something other than catching up on sleep. The scrolling stopped and JARVIS's voice narrated the translation on screen.

" _Now Loki was taken truceless, and was brought with them into a certain cave. Thereupon they took three flat stones, and set them on edge and drilled a hole in each stone. Then were taken Loki's sons, Váli and Nari or Narfi._ ” Oh, shit. And now Tony remember exactly why this story was grim. It had been all good and well when he had studied this as a myth. The cruelty within the Eddas was something to spice up the story, an artistic tool of the writer, or so he had thought. But now he had met the live Loki, and his daughter was sleeping his arms. “ _The Æsir changed Váli into the form of a wolf, and he tore asunder Narfi his brother. And the Æsir took his entrails and bound Loki with them over the three stones: one stands under his shoulders, the second under his loins, the third under his houghs; and those bonds were turned to iron._ ”

"Stop there,” Tony said grimly. Children. They were children, and the Aesir saw this as a fit punishment. Beside him, Pepper had become very pale and was staring at the screen in silence. “See? I get the feeling the definition of what's cultured and what's savage in magic vikingland are a bit different from here, Pep,” he offered quietly.

"But- but these are myths, Tony. Surely they were exaggerated. They might not be true at all! You can't base your decision on stories!” Pepper called exasperatedly. And under any other circumstances, this is where Tony would have crumbled and gave up. Pepper was usually the voice of reason in his ear when he was about to make a rash decision and he could not even count the number of times her voice had stopped him from doing something really, really stupid. It didn't help that he could not rationalize his reluctance to just wash his hands of this and let the Vikings settle this among themselves. Everything I this situation urged him to do just that. These were powerful beings that could flatten him with a punch. He had no stake in this, no claim or connection to this problem but the responsibility thrust upon him by an enemy. So why did the thought of giving this child away to her rightful keepers sit so wrong with him? It was a hunch, nothing more, and he couldn't justify acting on a hunch to Pepper. This just wouldn't fly with her.

"Sir, I believe validation of the information you have offered as claim is entirely possible, as one who is qualified to validate or negate such stories is about to join you,” JARVIS's voice cut through his line of thought like a hot knife through butter. He sat up with a start, jostling the baby in the process. Those sharp green eyes opened again, bleary with sleep and the girl let out a sleepy wail of complaint.

"What?! Oh, oh shit, sorry baby, didn't mean to wake you- Jay, what do you mean, who's coming here?” he called, getting to his feet without thought and forgetting to fret about the baby in his arms. “My sensors have picked up a type of energy I have come to correlate with what you may call teleportation magic, Sir, typically of denizens of Asgard,” the AI explained.

"Damn it! I thought the Bifrost is still broken?” he asked.

"Everything in Dr Foster's research notes points that it is so. However, I believe some type of storm is brewing over the balcony, Sir.” Tony looked at the child in his arms, then at the balcony, where some kind of weather disturbance was indeed forming. Which could only mean-

"Fuck! JARVIS! Darken the windows!” At once, the windows turned opaque and reflexive on the outside. “Fuck fuck fuck, he can't find her here- Pep. I need you to take her, take that basket and hide in one of the unused rooms. Loki said he made sure they can't find her and I'm guessing it works unless they see her. Go!” he offered her the Baby awkwardly, trying not to lose his hold on her. Pepper looked at the child reluctantly.

"Tony, listen to me. This is your chance. Just give him the child and don't get involved in this. Please.” Damn it, there was so much concern in her eyes, so much earnest worry, and he had put her through so much already. And yet he knew he could not just turn his back on this. The days he ignored the fate of innocents to keep himself comfortable had earned him a foul nickname and they were **over**.

"I'm sorry Pepper. I just can't do this without being sure. Let me talk to him. Jay is right. He knows his family, he knows what happened with Loki. I'll sniff around and we'll see how hot the water is. If I come to think it is safe, I swear to you I will give him the kid and that will be that, you'll even get to chew me out for being an idiot. Just- trust me on this,” he asked, well, near to pleaded if he was honest with himself. And Pepper, good, dependable Pepper, sighed and took the child from him, managing to do it with much more grace than he thought a single, childless woman should be able to, which was plain rude if you ask him. She hooked her fingers at the hem of the basket and turned to leave.

"Tony,” she looked as if there were a thousand things she wanted to say to him, not all of them pleasing, he was sure, but in the end, she shook her head. “Just- don't take too long. I still can't predict when I may burst out in flame and I can't be near the child when that happens. God thing I can do so much work from home,” with that, she walked out of the room and out of sight.

"Jarv, please put project 'Golden Fleece' on top of the working list. Don't let me neglect it again,” he said, walking towards the balcony door. He owed Pepper a lot. The list just kept getting longer. The least he could do was find a way to create a suit for her that would keep her fire at bay. He owed her that peace of mind.

 

The balcony door rattled as he neared it, pounded on by what appeared to be a big fist. Tony blessed his luck that the Thunderer did not elect to use his hammer.

"Man of Iron! Man of Iron! I seek audience with you! It is a matter of utmost importance! Stark! Are you well?” came his thundering voice through the barrier.

"Damn, I'd better stop him before he remembers Mjolnir is on his belt,” he choked. Alright. Alright. He could do this. Just keep calm. He could keep his wits about him. With one last steadying breath, he positioned himself in front of the door.

"Jarv, let him in.” The door slid open and Thor, who had just been meaning to knock again, stumbled into the room. He ventured a quick look around, as if looking for something and Tony held his breath, but the Thunderer didn't show any sign he detected anything before his eyes settled on Tony again.

"Man of Iron, it is relieving to see you well,” he boomed, reaching forward to clasp hands with the inventor. Tony tried not to wince at his hold. Damn, the man had no grasp on the magnitude of his power.  He put on his best marketing smile and clapped the god on the shoulder.

"Hey! Thor, buddy! How are you? How's it going in the golden city in the sky? Haven't seen you in quite a while, I got the impression the Bifrost was still broken. We've been well, of course, apart for some minor saving-the-world things, you know how it is-” his babbling streak was cut short abruptly when the Thunderer grasped his shoulders with both hands.

"-Whoa, Point Break, personal space needed, here-”

"Tony. It gladdens me to see you, and I would have been pleased to sit down and recount tales of my doings and the state of my home with you. However, I cannot do so, for I bear evil tidings, news dire enough to have my father use his force and recalled favors from the magicians of Vanaheim to send me and others to other realms without the use of the Bifrost, which, as per your correct assumption, is still broken. It is of utmost importance that I warn you, and then I must continue on my way least the trail go cold. I must leave further spreading the word to you, Man of Iron, as I have not the time to meet with your director Fury,” he said, his tone subdued for once, which told better than anything how affected he was by the happenings. “It is with regret that I must inform you that Loki had escaped,” he said solemnly. Tony tried his best to make his expression as shocked as possible.

"What- how? What the hell? I thought you took him to be trialed on Asgard and they would lock him up! And now you tell me he's on the loose again and you don't know where?!” he asked incredulously. “What the fuck happened?” Thor seemed uncharacteristically... embarrassed, was it? Tony couldn't pinpoint the look, exactly, but the big guy looked extremely uncomfortable.  
“It is a most unfortunate turn of events and we offer our humblest apologies. It was never supposed to happen, but unfortunately there was an- incident- concerning my brother's sentence and he had to be given his magic once more in order to give birth. He had deceived his guards into thinking he had not delivered yet and had used the time to regain strength he then used to escape. I am-”

"Whoa, whoa, big guy, just- just hold a moment. Back up. Hold your horses. Whatever phrase of words you have back home for 'hold a goddamn minute because my mind just imploded', ok?” Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “You can't just dump this on me in one breath and take off like nothing happened. You are going to sit down, and you are going to tell me exactly what happened since you and your bro disappeared in an aura of blue light,” he pulled at the big man's arm, leading him to the sofa. Thor let himself be led reluctantly, more out of courtesy than anything else, Tony suspected.

"Tony, I cannot dally here-” he started, but Tony wasn't about to let this opportunity go. Something was off here. This was a puzzle with one piece in his hand and a thousand more missing and he **needed** to have more before he could attempt to decide what he was going to do next. So he let his expression darken, pulled on all of his pent up frustration, his anger at the nightmares that kept pestering him, his frustration over the fact he could no longer stand on his own balcony without thinking of that horrible plunge towards the pavement and straightened his frame, glaring at the bigger man.

"No, Thor. You know what? No. This man threw me out of a window and tried to take over my mind. He had hurt my friends, killed people I cared about and destroyed my city. And now you are telling me he's on the loose and for all I know he might kill me tomorrow. I have the right to know what the **hell** happened to make that possible, and you are going to tell me.” his voice seethed with cold anger he only rarely showed. And you know what? It was mostly real. Because why he? Why the fuck was all this landing at his door? Hasn't he done enough already?

 

Thor seemed as if he was struck silent. It was odd, seeing remorse on the big guy's face. He looked like a kicked puppy and for a moment, Tony felt really bad about his tirade. But it worked.  
“You are right, Tony. I apologize. You have a right to know, and it is important that you realize Asgard was not neglecting its duty to have Loki trialed and punished accordingly.” he sighed and sat down. “After I brought my brother back to Asgard, he was brought before my father and a council of our most respected Aesir, as this treason has affected us all. Some cried for his death, but my father refused. Perhaps part of him still thinks there is hope for my brother, though his actions are proving him wrong as we speak. The Allfather's verdict was thus: as Loki sought to rule, he will be ruled. As he sought to subjugate, he will be subjugated. Because he was proud, he would be taught humility. He will learn of the hardship those not born of title or fortune must live with, and how a ruler's whims may affect those he rules.” Thor pursed his lips. “In other words, Tony Stark, my brother had been stripped of his title and his status, and had been made a slave to be treated as such for as long as he may live. Only Odin can give back what was taken and change that verdict, if he so chooses. I fear that after this, he may change the verdict to death. I also fear that my brother will welcome such fate,” he sighed heavily and oh, there were a thousand things Tony wanted to say at this point but he bit his tongue and held it, because he knew Thor wasn't finished and he needed as much information as he could get.  
“My brother was given to a master, one of the Vanir who oft had dealings in Asgard. I believe my father had wanted to keep Loki away from the court and its eye. The Vanir are sorcerers and seers, well capable of keeping a sorcerer at bay and with the means the Allfather had provided, even more so. It was only after a full year had passed that it came to our knowledge that the man had betrayed the Allfather's trust and took liberties that were not his own to take. My brother had been returned to court a shadow of himself, a man who cowers in the shadows, covered in marks of discipline that was too severe by any means. And he was with child.” Tony made an incoherent noise, sickened by what he was hearing. The god took it as an expression of disbelief. “I tell only truth, my friend. Though you have been wronged by him, I do not think you a man to be heartened by the state he was in. and I have told you that my brother is not Aesir. He is a shape-shifter and had mothered children before. We have thought it to be only product of his shape shifting, but it appears that his natural form is capable of the deed as well. My father ordered that he be kept in a cell inside the palace and given back use of his magic in order for his body to ready for the birth. But by some unknown way, he had managed to conceal the time of his birth and regain his strength, and has fled with the child. Now I must give chase and capture them and bring them back.” The tale seemed to cause him sadness, at least there was that. But the way he spoke of his own brother's rape! And it was rape, no going around it. 'Took _liberties that were not his own to take_ ' as if he was speaking about a guest taking a drink out of his host's fridge or eating the leftover pizza on the counter. What the hell?!

"Thor-” he started, and then had to stop and rephrase all the insults he wanted to spit out. “What- what will happen to them after you bring them back?” he asked. The good seemed even more uncomfortable at the question.

"They will be taken before the Allfather and, if he does not elect to change Loki's sentence, they will most probably be given a new master,” he rumbled.

"WHAT? The child too?” Tony choked. Thor's expression darkened.

"A child born to a slave is also a slave, Stark. Unless something else is decided, this is what it shall be. I do not know my father's plans for the child, but worry not, he will not allow it to remain in Loki's influence. Another place must be found for it, and he must mind the advice of the council, even if the child is of his kin.”

 

That was when Tony knew. At that exact moment, he knew he would never give this child to Thor, or to her Allgrandpa in the sky or whatever. People who would condemn a child to a life of slavery because of sins she had not committed and had not witnessed. People who could speak of abuse as 'discipline'. What was **wrong** with those people? He had wanted Loki punished, but what he had in mind was imprisonment, not torture and rape! ' _I will not see the death or enslavement of another child._ ' And he had thought the god had been exaggerating to draw his sympathy. No, Loki knew exactly what would become of the child if he allowed them to have her. And he'll be damned if he gave this child back. No way. Not even Pepper would force him, and if JARVIS was transferring the feed of this conversation to her room like Tony hoped he was, she would not want to either. He was sure of that. He sighed.

"Well, I hope you get him. Hate to think of the guy waltzing across the realms and leaving destruction behind like he loves to do. Happy hunting, we'll drop a word if we see him anywhere. I won't keep you any longer, and I'll notify the team. Fare thee well and all that,” he rose from his seat, directing the god back to the balcony. Now that he had made his decision, he needed the god out of his place and, preferably, away from earth as soon as possible. Thor faced him again on the open balcony, while Tony was trying very hard not to think of the wind whipping past and the sheer drop just two steps ahead.

"Worry not, Tony Stark. We shall capture Loki and bring him back to face justice. Midgard will remain safe from his hold, I will make sure of that. I thank you for your understanding, my friend, and hope to see you once more, bearing fairer tidings. Fare thee well.” With that, the God turned and raised his hammer. With a burst of light, he was gone.


	4. It Never Is That Easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I'm on a roll! Supposed to be studying for a test, but I can't stop writing! XD And I have no self restraint whatsoever when it comes to posing chapters.   
> Decisions, decisions, right?   
> A few notes about this chapter and the next few:  
> I'm probably ging to mix Marvel lore, mythology and some of my own inventions where there is no info to be found, especially about Jotun and Vanir and s on and so forth. Just to let you know. 
> 
> Also, I'm wondering if I'm stretching this for too long.... this decsion is taking so long and we are still in the same scene. I hope I'm not boring you. It just doesnt seem realistic to me, if he would just decide this on a whm, or if the decision would be easy. its hard for Tony to commit, and its a decision over the life of a helpless child.

 

The first thing Tony noticed when he returned to the living room was Pepper. It was hard not to notice her. She was standing in the middle of the room.

And she was on fire.

"Fuck!” he jumped, eyes wide “Pepper! The baby-”

"-Is fine. I got away from her before I-” Pepper gestured helplessly at her burning visage. There was nothing left of her clothes save for a bra and a pair of panties which were the first prototype of the 'Golden Fleece' project. The material was extremely hard to make and did nothing to quell the fire, it just survived relatively well in the extreme heat. It was doing its best now. “It's just that- I- wasn't ready for this,” she said tearfully, though there was no sign of tears, not in this heat. He understood what she meant. He hadn't been ready either.

“You were right,” she admitted. “You can't give them the baby. There is no knowing where she would end up and how. I can't believe-” she choked. “I've been with her for all of five minutes and I know she isn't even human, but I can't believe they can even think-” she shook her head.

 "Yeah, I know. Been a real eye opener, that one. I don't know if the Eddas are true and frankly I've lost all will to ever find out because this is the stuff of nightmares. Jay, buddy, keep an eye on the baby and tell me if she cries or if anything changes? I'm not bringing her to the bonfire just yet. No offense, Pep,” he smiled sheepishly at the smoldering woman. She chuckled a weak, watery chuckle.

"None taken. I'm sorry about your floor. I should leave-”

"No, better stay on the spot and- chill out. I should get you a specialized room to cool off when you ignite. Good thing you still keep spare clothes in your room...” and there, conversation effectively killed by the elephant in the room. Pepper sniffed and avoided his gaze, rubbing her hands along he arms as she waited for the heat to dissipate while he walked over to the counter and started the coffee machine. When her skin stopped emitting randomly placed licks of flame, she started pacing to and fro, letting the air cool off her skin and casually avoiding the scorch mark on the floor. When she was finally able to sit down, Tony presented her with a (fire resistant, or so the tag said) comforter he kept on the couch for such cases (and what did it say, that this was becoming a recurring event in his living room? Probably nothing nice about his character, that's for sure.) and a cup of steaming coffee. She sat down on one of the stools, a wiser choice than the couch if a less comfortable one, since secondary combustions sometimes occurred after the initial one. She accepted the mug with thanks and for a few long moments they sat together in what was slowly turning into a comfortable silence again.   
“Well, that got one option off the table,” Pepper said at last. “It leaves you with a few more to consider, though.  I believe you can do as Loki asked in good faith. Between all the company's workers and our ties around the world, I am sure I can find a family that would love to have a child, or take in another one. Background checks can attest to the best choices and I will be picky, I promise. You'll be able to keep tabs on her throughout her life. If we find no suitable couples among our contacts, I will start a wider search, I promise I'll be able to find a discreet family that would give her all she needs,” Pepper offered vehemently. But Tony was still hesitant. The thought of letting the child out of his sight just sat wrong with him. As if out of his care, her family of Space Vikings would zero in on her like a bloodhound on a fawn.

"I don't know, Pep. It just doesn't feel- safe. We'll be involving innocent people in this, bystanders who are ignorant of the whole story, and they have to be because we can't tell them we give them **Loki's** child as a foster,” he mused, biting at his thumb. Pepper's brow wrinkled and he knew she was preparing her counter argument when JARVIS's voice echoed through the speakers.

"Sir, if Miss Potts doesn't object, I would like to offer an insight I believe both of you are overlooking,” he said ever so politely. Which was his polite way of calling Tony a bloody idiot if he ever knew one. Not that Jay would ever insinuate something like that in relation to Pepper, but then Pep wasn't the one who claimed to be a genius. By the slight rise of the corners of her mouth she was both nonobjective of the interference and very well aware of Jay's criticism.   
“Fine, oh wise one. Please enlighten us,” he said, rolling his eyes at one of the monitors to show he was not at all moved by the opinion of a computer program he had created, thank you very much.

"Sir, I wish to remind you that the child is not, in fact, human,” the AI offered.

"Uh, yeah, the visit from the Space Viking brother major not five minutes ago kinda clued us in, Jay, if the heartfelt monologue from her psycho voodoo-user of a fath- err, mother, didn't clear that picture before,” Tony exclaimed testily.

"Well, Sir, then I must point out that, taking into account the average known lifespan of a member of the Aesir, as well as Loki's own, the child may well outlive you by centuries.”  
  
Tony stared at Pepper, which returned his gaze with what appeared to be a reflection of his own shock.

Well fuck. Bested by his own program. He was an idiot, is what he was.

"I'm a moron. Thanks for phrasing it in small words, Jay, so I'd understand,” he covered his eyes with a hand, rubbing at his brow tiredly.

"You are far from a moron, Sir. You simply tend to overlook some details, as your mind races forward with your plans. It is what I am for, is it not?” the AI said gently.   
“My glorified babysitter,” he smiled at Pepper, who smiled back. It was reassuring to see that some things remained unbroken between them. “And far more than that. Anyway. This poses a problem.” He got to his feet and started pacing, filled with too much nervous energy and newly ingested caffeine to stay still. “Kid's lifespan means we can't give her to a normal family. Who know how long her childhood would be? I don't think Loki thought this one through, frankly.” although when thinking about it, anything was better than what she had waiting back in Magic Vikingland. “Oh! And that doesn't even cover the matter of what abilities she might have! With Loki as part of her genetic code and a- who the hell knows what a 'Vanir' is, as the other part, Kid's sure to have **something**.” Yes, and that escalated the problem to a whole new level. Pepper nodded and let silence settle over the counter again, deep in thought. Eventually, she broke the silence again, stirring her coffee hesitantly as she offered her next suggestion.

"I can- make contact with X's ilk, from the “School for Higher Learning,'” she said slowly. “She is not a mutant but she will be accepted for what she is, there. Whatever powers she will have, or lifespan she ends up having, she won't be seen as odd or different. They may be able to teach her more about herself.” Tony could see how that would be beneficial. Yes, from a certain angle, it was even the best option. And he really gave it serious consideration for a moment. But no. no, because from other angles, it could have atrocious consequences.

"She's a baby, Pep. Even if they would agree to rear a baby up- have you been following press of the place? Every couple of years they have a falling out, a grand attack or a disagreement within the ranks and the place blows up, people get missing or die... I'm sure Shield is also all over the place, not to mention the World Council and you KNOW those fuckers have their own agenda. I can't expose her to any of this. I need her to be safe. Besides, the X men have their own agendas, and I don't have any power over them. I am not her legal guardian. If I let her out of my hands, I lose every say over her life, education and safety and I may be a self-absorbed jerk sometimes, but I won't be responsible for fucking up the child's life because I couldn't think this through and gave her up to strangers.” Damn, where was THAT coming from? How was HE the responsible adult all of a sudden? Maybe he should tell Pep to check him for fever.

But then, he knew where this was coming from. He had a monumentally crappy father. Ne who provided all that he needed physically, but was a black void emotionally. This child already had a crappy starting point in life. He wouldn't be the one responsible of making the rest of her life equally crappy. He won't be the caretaker who provided a child with physical necessities but warped her life and her inner self into something she would loath and value so little she would turn to self-destruction. And wasn't that a sobering thought. He needed a drink.   
“Well, where does that leave us, then? You've said no to anything I offered, but you don't have a better solution, do you?” Oh, Pepper was cross with him again. He could feel the heat rising, both figuratively and physically. He needed to tread carefully. But it wasn't an option anymore, was it? This wasn't only about him and his well-being anymore. He couldn't cave in and placate Pepper and move on.

"I don't know, Pepper! Alright? I don't know,” he said desperately, raking his fingers through his hair. “Look, I know I'm not the best person to be deciding this. I'm not the best person to even be weighing the options, but Loki had left this at **my** doorstep and even if I owe him nothing at all, this is a living child and I can't make a lighthearted decision about her life. Besides-” it was hard admitting this, but it needed to be said “I've **seen** torture, Pep. I've **experienced** it. After a while- after a while when your bruises start overlapping and you can't tell old from new wounds anymore- after days start mingling with nights and you lose the sense of time because knowing how long it has been only prolongs the pain, you get that **look** in your eyes, one that scares the shit out of you every time you stare at a reflective surface for more than a second because you know with absolute certainty you are **this** close to doing everything they want you to do just to get a fucking **breath** -” he couldn't breathe, suddenly he couldn't get a fucking lungful of air and his chest was burning with inhaled water, murky, dark, freezing water and god don't let it splash on the battery, don't let it don'tLetItDon'tLetIt-

"-ny! Tony! TONY!” a hand on his own, burning hot as if the person had a fever and a persistent call in his ear. She was shaking him.

"Wh- yes, yes, sorry, drifted off in thought for a moment,” fuck, he was breathing so fast he was becoming lightheaded, shallow, rapid breaths. He forced himself to slow down, concentrating on the slow tick of the clock hanging somewhere on the wall behind him. This was why he kept the 'low tech' non digital clocks in the house, though when asked he would evade the topic like fire. Pepper was watching him closely, her face deathly pale and her expression drawn. He had never shared his experiences in Afghanistan with her. Only snippets. He just couldn't talk about it, and he didn't want to remember it, and he didn't want the pity. Like the one showing in her eyes at the moment.

 "Tony-” she started, her voice ever so tender, but he just couldn't have this soft and tender treatment right now because a bit more of that and he would crack at the seams and no one wanted to see **that**.

"No, look. I had a point here. All that- that look, I saw it in Loki's eyes. The man was tortured, Pep, and I suspect there wasn't even a real purpose behind it, like it was with me. At least I knew what it is I needed to do- never mind. Point is, he didn't even have a way to stop it, and if he was a fruit basket before that... and now he's running, knowing he'll most probably be caught yet he didn't ask me for anything but this. No matter what he did, he didn't deserve this and if it's the one thing I can do to make this right, I will.“ He rubbed a hand over his face, feeling his heard slowly return to its normal tempo. “Fuck, this is fucked up.”

"Sir, the child has started crying,” JARVIS announced calmly. Fucking hallelujah. He actually preferred dealing with the child thank any more **talking** , at the moment. And what did that say of him, he wondered.

"Coming,” he jumped off his stool and a hurried off before Pepper gathers her wits again, and headed to the spare room from which the complaining wails of the baby were coming. Red rimmed emerald eyes regarded him with insult as he entered the room.

"Hey baby, sorry, didn't mean to leave you all alone. Grownups needed to talk and- cool off,” he said apologetically as he stood over her and tried to figure out how to lift her from the bed without bending anything out of shape, head included, he reminded himself. Finally he managed to gather her up in a way that didn't make any limb stretch dangerously and maneuvered her awkwardly into his arms.

"Alright, there we go. That wasn't so bad, was it?” the emerald gaze clearly said otherwise. “Hey, I warned you kid. Terrible father. But, it seems we're stuck with each other and so help me, if I have to do this, I'll make it my business to do it the best I can. Promise,” he vowed, and he might be crazy but he could swear that for a moment, that unrelenting gaze softened. “Ok. Now to get to the living-room in one piece. Hang on kid, it's gonna be a bumpy ride,” he muttered, making his way back inch by inch, as if he was carrying a house of cards on a plate. Pepper was waiting, nursing her mostly empty mug of coffee and a scowl. She even made a valiant effort to hold on to it while she watched him crab-walk his way across the room, before she gave up to the hilarity she apparently saw in his misery and burst out laughing.

"Oh, GOD, Tony, that poor kid, that's no way to hold a child! No wonder you're walking on eggshells. Come here,” she walked briskly towards him, snaking her arms alongside his and taking hold of the baby. “Here, you hold her like this. Support the center of her body, cradle her in an arm and support the head with your palm or inner elbow. If you want to hold her up, you do this,” she guided him to shift his hold, and he had a ridiculous Deja-Vu of the first time he dealt with explosives (officially and thus safely) and his instructor's hands, working alongside his as they aligned the contents for a bomb. Careful, ever so careful. He could do this, he told himself firmly. If he could handle volatile materials, he could handle a baby. The same principle applied; don't drop it, don't jostle it.

“How the hell do you know all this, Pep?” he gave in to his curiosity at last. Pepper gave a flat look.

"Relatives, Tony. That, and I used to babysit. The fact I've never had any of my own doesn't mean I was never exposed to babies,” she said drily and proceeded to show him how to shift the baby from hold to hold.

The end of that impromptu crash course found him sitting on the sofa again, the baby in his arms, gazing at her tiny face.

"You know, I'm no expert, but this baby seems much heavier than she should be,” he mused. Seriously. He usually worked with metal most of the day yet his arms were starting to get tired. To his surprise, it was JARVIS who answered.

"The child is not human, Sir. Previous scans of Thor and Loki had proven that both Aesir and- Frost Giant physique is different on the cellular level and their structure is much denser, both bone and tissue,” he offered.

"Thus the usually impenetrable skin, right,” he had forgotten. Another thing that set the child apart. Though, if she was sturdier than most babes, it was actually an advantage. Not that he was going to test that. Actually, he was sort of fascinated. He had never been so close to a baby before, by his own choice but still. She was such a tiny creature, and yet so- so perfect. Tiny hands sported even tinier fingernails, all in perfect detail. Each finger so small and delicate, seeming as if it would snap at a vigorous wind, and tiny seashell sized ears, curved perfectly like a master sculptor's masterpiece. She seemed so serene in the warmth of his arms, half asleep and perfectly at ease with her surroundings. All she needed was to know someone was holding her. The finality of his decision loomed over him like the shadow a gallows. Damn it, how could he find a solution when he didn't even know what he was dealing with? He couldn't give her away to people under-equipped for dealing with her- uniqueness. Yet even at best estimate, he couldn't see himself living for more than 30 years ahead, tops. And that was being generous. How mature would she be when he dies? And what would he do then? Who would be her next guardian? And could he scar her mind at a young age with his own death? So many things to consider, to take into account. How could he be expected to make the decision on the spot?

 

Hey.

Wait! Who the **hell** said he had to decide on the spot?! Sure, it was what Pepper wanted, but sometimes one has to make peace with the fact not all things would go as they want. He understood her reluctance to draw this any further, but wiser men than him (well, metaphorically, let's face it) had said that to avoid choosing was also a choice. Well, let that be his choice.

"Pep,” he said, drawing her attention. Well, here goes nothing. “I've decided.” The cautious look Pepper sent his way made him suppress and entirely inappropriate urge to giggle maniacally. God help him, what was he even **doing**.

"I've decided- to postpone decision,” he released the breath he was holding in a steady stream of air. “Look, before you say anything, I'm not being childish, or difficult. I really have a good reason. Even if we decide to find her a home, we'll have to look and that would take days, even weeks. During that time someone will have to take care of her, and if she is to be safe, well, I think it's agreed no one must know who and what she is. This would mean keeping everyone on a need to know basis. I'm not going to bring a nanny into this. Too many unknown variables. We also must admit that we don't have a fucking clue what we're dealing with. For all I know, kid's going to sprout antlers at any moment. She might shoot lasers out of her eyes. She might wake up fully grown tomorrow or stay a baby for a millennial. We just don't **know**. So since it seems she would have stayed here for a few weeks in any case, let's postpone talk of solutions for that time and let's make a conscious effort to **find out** things. I can't exactly knock on the pretty rainbow door in the sky and ask the Viking next door, but some information must have reached earth. Some people must know details, if we dig enough. Besides that, think we should agree to bring Bruce into this. The man's the closest thing to a doctor we can bring near her. Maybe he can help us find out more about her lifespan and growing process. He sure will help if she catches some childhood illness- if that's even possible for a- half-Frost-Giant-half-Vanir-whatever to catch earth illnesses...” damn, so many unknowns. He could feel the migraine threaten to return once more. Where were the painkillers when he needed them? Ah, right. Gone two weeks ago. He could use Banner for that too. Simple Tylenol hadn't been cutting it for a few years now. Not since a bit after Afghanistan.

 

Pepper had wrapped the comforter around herself like a towel and by some womanly miracle, managed to look quite proper and regal standing before him with just that around her frame. She pinned him with one of her soul searching looks, the ne he could never evade, no matter how much he wanted to.

"You have given this quite a bit of thought,” she said quietly, her expression forming into something he could not read. Not that he was that good at reading expressions in the first place. “And I can see you have made up your mind. I know that expression, and nothing I will say will change your mind.“ She sounded sad? Was she sad? “I agree that Banner can be let in on the secret. He will be a great help. But Tony,” she sat down across from him, forcing him to look at her and she was as serious as he had ever seen her. “Bruce can't help you. Not really. He can't be here all the time and there are times he's just- not **safe** around children. Or anything at all. Bruce can't help you,” she took a deep breath “And I can't help you. I can't, Tony. I can't control myself, my fire is unpredictable. I can't trust myself around a child. I can't **be** here,” she clasped her hands in her lap, “And I don't know if I ever will be able to.” Silence fell in the absence of her voice, as Tony stared at her in shock.

"Pepper-”

"No, Tony. Look, when I got involved with you, I know what you are. I knew about the women, I knew about your self-destruction, and I knew they were a product of your own self-loathing. I thought- I knew I could change that. I know you could change that, if only you wanted and you proved me right. And I also knew that your nature is to tinker, to meddle, to be carried away by your ideas. I know you will always end up doing what you think you should, and be where you think you are needed. It is your nature and I wouldn't want to change that, because this is the man I love. But I am aware now, that there are places you must go that I can't follow. They are not meant for us mere humans of average existence,” she said at length.

"Pepper, you are anything **but** average,” he growled, narrowing his eyes at the sudden pain in his chest because this **hurt**. This fucking hurt, to hear that his own nature, as always has set him apart from everything and everyone in his life. Pepper smiled.

"It's sweet of you to say, Tony, but I know that try as I might, there are places in your mind where I can't follow. And there are things you must do I cannot take partnership in. not- not now.” she shook her head. “I will help as much as I can, I will do my best to remain useful, but I have my own challenge I must face, and I am not sure if I will ever truly conquer it.” Her eyes bore into his again. “So I want you to think well about this, because it will be all on you. Handling the baby, juggling truths and lies and half-truths, sneaking behind people's backs, handling the fallout... I won't always be able to help and I won't always be fast enough to do damage control. Can you handle that? Can you commit to that? This is not something you can get bored of and throw away, or hand over to someone else when you're tired of it.”

The normal Tony would have been mad. The Normal Tony would have snarked and complained about being treated like a child, and talked about being a legal adult, thank you very much. But for once, he had no urge to do so. Because if he was being honest with himself, Pepper knew him best, and painful as this conversation has become, he knew that she was right in her words. And for once, he had no flippant or sophisticated answer to give.

"I know, Pep. I am fully aware of the risks, here, and the consequences. After the childhood I've had, I'd be damned if I'll be the cause of another child's crappy childhood. If 'm going to do this, I'm going all in. I promise you that and I promise I will not postpone my decision for more than a few weeks. I will not make her bond with me if I am not going to keep her,” he vowed. And he meant it.

 

And then he jumped, almost rocketed out of his chair as a sudden loud wail of complaint came from his lap. Moment lost. Thanks so much, kid.

"Fuck! Heart attack, imminent! Kid, you have great lungs. You've got that going for you. What's wrong?” his startled huffing turned to concerned babble. (And not cooing, thank you. Tony Stark most certainly did not coo.) He tightened his hold on the baby in his lap, hoping that like last times, a warm, secure touch was all he wanted. But unlike last times, his cradling did nothing to quell the baby's complaint. If anything, it grew more urgent.

"What? What is it, baby, what do you want?” he asked, trying to analyze the problem logically, which was very hard with the noise.

"I'm guessing she's hungry,” Pepper said matter-of-factly. “I can't imagine Loki had time to feed her before he took off. Which reminds, me, you'll need supplies for her,” she reminded. And this is when Tony realized he. Had. no. clue. He gave Pepper a startled, helpless, wide eyed look that said 'help me because I've got no fucking idea what I'm doing!' and Pep, so very good at reading him, only sighed and started talking to JARVIS, ordering diapers and powder and wipes, bottles and baby formula. At which point it struck him.

"Wait! Wait. Can she even digest human baby formula? Is it even compatible? What does she even eat?” he realized he could not be sure of any of these things. Pepper stopped mid-sentence, for once as thrown as he was by the thought. They had no way of knowing.

Well, no way of knowing, but they could make an educated guess. With a sharp turn on a bare heel, Pepper started briskly for her room and her stack of spare clothes, stopping only to give him a look of mutual understanding.

"Get Banner.”

 

 


	5. What's in a Name?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw, people, thank you so much for all the comments and interest. It really means a lot to me :) I love writing for people.  
> This chapter turned out longer than usual, since I just couldnt find a good place to cut it before that point. You profit XD  
> This story is turning out to be much longer than I thought it would be, but hey, Plot and emtinal writing! I'm good with it.  
> Thank you for the Kudos, and look! 1000 hits! *grin*  
> I hope you'll like this chapter. Enjoy. As always, comments critic and suggestions are welcome.

This was going to be fun.

As in, 'as fun as pulling teeth with metalwork pliers' fun. Which was none at all. Tony shifted the baby in his arms and reached for the phone with a sigh.

"Kid, when you're 20 years old, if I survive, remind me to remind you that you owe me for this,” he muttered, pressing dial while trying, desperately, to make the child stop crying. “Come on, kid. Do me a solid, tune down for just five minutes, then you can complain to your heart's content, please!” Apparently, babies were not moved by pleading.

"Tony.” Came Banner's voice through the line. He sounded surprised. Well, it has been a while since they science binged, and the Hulk was not exactly compatible with the streets so he kinda was their reserve on missions.

"Hey Brucie, how'ya been? Keeping it pink?” he said cheerfully. Banner wasn't buying it.

"Tony- is that a baby I hear? What's going on?”

"Why do you think something's going on? Can't I just call my science buddy?”

"Tony, you never 'just call'. You know I'm off-tower, right?” Bruce said flatly.

"What? Where are you?” Tony felt his panic rising again. This was bad. If Banner was not in, they wouldn't know what to feed the child, and babies need to eat every- what, three, four hours? Fuck.

"That conference, remember? I brought you a brochure? You said it sounded boring?” something in that description rang a dim bell in his mind. He had been mid-work, with 40 hours of consciousness behind him and probably about 20 ahead, and had only vaguely registered the entire conversation.

"Oh right! Right. Well, any chance it's ending soon? Like, real soon? As in 'I'm sending my fastest jet to get you' soon?” he said, trying to avoid sounding hysterical. Nailed it, too. He hoped.

"What happened this time? And no bullshit, Tony, or I'm not coming. And why is there a BABY nearby? What did you DO?” Banner never sounded annoyed. His Zen was far too powerful for that, but Tony had learned to anticipate him, to a degree and he was treading dangerous ground. So though it pained him, he decided to drop the sass and just plunge in.

 "Why does everybody always assume I **did** something?!” Tony called. “No, no. don't answer that. Look, Bruce, its complicated, and really **really** not a matter for the phone, secure as it may be. But it's connected to the baby, I need your medical expertise and before you ask, no, I can't bring in a 'real doctor'. It's an emergency. Please, Bruce.” He could hear the sigh over the line, a long suffering sound that spoke volumes.

"Well, things were dying down here anyway. Most of the buzz was yesterday. Send the jet, Tony, I'll head to the roof. You're lucky I travel light.”  
“Thanks, buddy. I really appreciate it. And I owe you one,” he said with real warmth.

"Yeah, yeah. Who's counting. See ya soon.” the line clicked. Well, at least he managed to get him to come. Next goal, have him **not** Hulk out when he hears the story.

"Jarv, that brochure is on one of the lab desks. I'm quite sure you can see the address with your sensors. Please send the jet.” Lucky the place was not on the other side of the US.  
“Right away Sir,” JARVIS responded. “Jet is en-route. ETA, 32 minutes.” And that meant now all Tony had to do was wait. Wait, and do his best to calm down the little fog horn that was his new responsibility.  
“How come kids don't come with a mute button? Come on, kid, I can't give you anything until I know it's safe, please bear with me, dinner's on the way. Promise,” he said, giving the kid a pleading look. Which, of course didn't help at all. After a few fidgety moments he gave in to his nervous energy and took to pacing, making rounds across the living-room. Surprisingly, the movement and gentle bouncing seemed to do something good for once. Gradually, the child's cries quieted and red rimmed eyes turned to look up at him again, seemingly taking his face.

"Well hello pretty girl. You're right, I guess introductions ARE in order. We've been acting really rude, haven't we?” he said with a smile. The child stayed silent, looking up at him with interest. She seemed to be drawn by his voice, listening with rapt attention. Finally, someone who appreciated him talking! “Yeah, you and I are going to get along just fine, kid. So, hi there. I'm Tony Stark. Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist and apparently, your new- err- guardian? Godfather? Provider? Step-something? I don't have a clue baby, but we can figure that out later. And you are?” he asked with a grin. He was met with lingering silence and an emerald gaze which seemed to be full of anticipation. His grin froze, then faded slowly as he realized- “Oh dear. You don't have a name, do you, kid? Or, if you do have one, Loki never mentioned it,” he said faintly.

 

Funny. That this, of all things, would be the thing to finally make the coin drop in his mind. That tiny detail in the grand scheme of things, was what brought the world crumbling down around him. He sat down with a thud, looking down at the small child in his arms and if the arc reactor was the proof Tony stark has a heart, it might as well have cracked down the middle.

"Not even a name...” his eyes felt hot and there was something lodge is his throat, something that made it hard to breath. He swallowed thickly. She was all alone. No one to care about her, no one to even grace her with a name. What was a person without a name? If she disappeared today, there wouldn't even be a word to remember her by. With a hitched breath he refused to think of as anything but that, he held the child to him, hugging her gently against his chest. “You're not alone, kid. I do care. Even if no one else does, I do care. Somehow, I will make sure you're taken care of so that you'll never feel alone again. I'll find a way,” he whispered.

"Sir, if I may...” JARVIS sounded uncharacteristically hesitant. “Since she lacks a name, perhaps your first act in light of that promise should be to present her with one,” he said gently, and if a machine could ever have emotions he would have called his tone tender. He knew JARVIS was not human, and he never deluded himself that the AI was more than he built it up to be, but- sometimes he wondered. Sometimes he imagined he could glimpse the ghost in the shell.

"To name her?” he mused. He found himself to be surprisingly hesitant to do so. “Jarv, you don't just- name someone.” To name something is to present a word that sums up its existence. Some people could spew names like nothing at all, but he had always been reluctant to do so. It was part of the reason he invented so many nicknames for the ones around him. A nickname could sum up only parts of the person it belonged to. Nicknames were versatile, ever changing, and in his mind, held less power than one's full name. Most people never even noticed how one would be affected at the sound of their own name. A person would stop, turn their full attention to the speaker. Their heads would perk up even if it was called in the street. A name had the power to halt a man in his steps, if only for a moment. Using one's full name in a threat always made it more effective. Those were small things, but his very nature was to pay attention to those small details no one tended to notice, and he knew. 'To name something is to take possession of it. To give something a name is to take full responsibility over it. To name someone, is to connect them to you.' He couldn't remember which book that came from, but it rang true in his ears. Huh. He either was on to something or he was more of a fruit's basket than he realized.

 

Could he name her? Could he connect her to him in such a way? He could speak of caring for her all he wanted but this- this was an act of commitment. The first of many, he suspected. This was an intimate thing. He got the feeling that if he did this, there was no going back. He looked down into the emerald eyes of a child with no parents, no family and no name to call her own, and he knew the answer.

"Jarv, open up some name charts. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to find the perfect one,” he instructed.

"I already took the liberty of doing so, Sir. If you look at the screen, you will see a selection of lists,” the AI commented. Tony arched his brow at one of his cameras.

"How did you know I'd decide to do this?” he shook his head. “Forget that. You know me too well.”

"It is my purpose,” JARVIS said pleasantly. Tony chuckled.

"You sell yourself short, buddy. Are those Norse name lists?” he wondered. “Do you really think it's wise?”

"It is her heritage, Sir. You wished for a meaningful name. I believe this goes in line with your wishes,” he explained. And Tony could have kissed him.

"Sometimes you're so clever you make me sick and oh so very proud at the same time,” he said teasingly. “Wow, these names are a mouthful. Bergljot? How do you even pronounce that?”

 

Ten minutes, a few lists and several detours to Google Translate later, (eventually Tony relented to use the translator's verbal pronouncer, though he grumbled all the while.) Tony was nearing a peak of frustration and frankly, becoming quite desperate. Nothing seemed to fit, and they were running out of female Norse names. “Don't they have any names that don't break your tongue? And I don't think Loki would approve his daughter being named anything Thor- related. Why are so many of them Thor-related? Those are girl's names! Fixation much?! I mean come on! I kinda see where a guy can get offended here, actually,” he growled, back to pacing because kid was fussing again. “Perhaps we should give up on Norse and go for meaning instead of language. She's not **from** earth. What language the name comes from won't really matter to her, right?” he rubbed his face, trying to clear his head. “It was a good idea though. Ok, give me lists. Old English, Latin, European variations, middle east... I wouldn't go as far as the Far East yet, too many ways to miss-pronounce the names and I'm tired of using Google Translate as my narrator,” he instructed, looking up at the screen again.

“My apologies Sir. I shall endeavor to teach myself the pronunciations of Old Norse as soon as possible,” the AI said drily.

“Aw, I'm not criticizing you Jay, I never asked you to study languages beyond the ones of our business partners. I'm actually relieved there's something you can't master within a minute of expressing the need. I'd start feeling redundant, you know. Human and all that,” he said with a grin.

“I am studying the subject as we speak. Current process is at 60 percent. But you will never be redundant, Sir. After all, someone must do maintenance to my code,” he offered. Tony chuckled.

“That was low, Jarv, you evil machine, you. Alright, enough teasing, more naming. Lists!” Ah. Now this was more like it. The lists were much broader now, and offered much more variation. “Start scrolling,” he said, squinting to concentrate as the lists flew along the screen, words racing from bottom to top at a sped most people would find impossible to do anything useful with. For him it was a comfortable scanning pace. “Stop! Hmm. No, nope. Too many N's. Go.” The lists buzzed on. “Pause! This one's- almost perfect. File it away as an option. I don't feel it, but we might not get anything better at this rate. Go.” The silence this time was much longer, broken only by the rustle of fabric as he bounced the child gently to quell her complaints. Come on, where was Bruce?!

"These are disappointing. I get now why parents start doing this months before baby's born. I might just end up calling you Kid, baby,” he muttered. Then- “Wait! Stop! No, go over to that last one. No, that, yes, that. That!” he poked the screen. ”That one! That one's perfect!” he said with a growing, giddy grin. “Look at this: 'meaning: Sympathy, compassion. Some claim a Latin origin and the meaning 'one who heals.' This is perfect! It feels just right on my tongue and I like it. What do you say, kid? Show me a Yay or Nay here. Shall we call you, forever more, Eleanor?” he asked with a grin. And at that moment, looking into her eyes questioningly, something just- clicked.

"Eleanor,” he said softly, and the eyes softened, as if she acknowledged, the name, or him, or perhaps the moment itself. “Nice to meet you, Eleanor,” he whispered.

"A fine choice, Sir.” JARVIS said softly.

"Yeah. Well. It had to be done,” Tony exclaimed, trying to swallow past the sudden, annoying lump in his throat.

"Aaanyway, Jay dear, what's that jet doing? Making pizza stops on the way back here? Elli's hungry.” Aaand, there goes the name. Full names were important and all, but he was not doing them. Not unless it was important. Besides, it **was** kind of a mouthful.

"ETA is 6 minutes, Sir,” the AI responded. “And the products Miss Potts has listed are being delivered up as we speak.”

"Up? Oh shit! Jay, I want this floor on lock-down after they leave. No one but me, Pep and Bruce come and go. Others require my permission. Can't have anyone stumble in at the wrong moment,”

 WHERE was his brain, that he didn't think of that until now? Anyway, more pressing matters-

"Pepper! I hope you're decent because we have guests coming and I can't greet them at the door!” he called.

Not a minute later, Pepper reappeared back in the living-room, now wearing a comfortable pair of black pants and an eggshell top. “Very Sport-Elegant,” he offered with a grin. “Now please get rid of the guests while I hide in the attic? Well, my room. Same same,” he asked with a flair of his hand. Pepper rolled her eyes and dismissed him with a gentle shove.

"Go. I'll handle this.”

 

Five long minutes later, Tony was allowed back into the living-room, and good thing too because apparently the acoustics in his room was just perfect to amplify little Elli's voice and she was NOT happy with the delay of her meal.  

"Presents! Did you get me something? Did ya? Did ya?” Pepper rolled her eyes at him.

"It's you that's buying, and yes. I got you this,” she offered him a little box. He took it with surprise, only to release it held a pink pacifier inside.

"Oh, ha ha.” He set the box down and took a closer look at the rest of the things now strewn over the table. “Whoa, that's a lot of stuff. What do you even DO with all that,” he wondered, lifting something that looked like a gigantic pipe cleaner. That, or a miniature toilet brush.

"That's for you to find out. I'm sure JARVIS can find you some clear instructions,” Pepper said calmly, taking the- whatever it was out of his hand.

"That's cold, Pep,” he accused.

"I told you, I'll help as much as I can, Tony. But I can't spoon feed you through this.” She sighed. “Maybe you should start by deciding where to store all this. I think-” But he never got to hear what she thought, because at that moment the door opened once more.

"Sir, Doctor Banner has arrived,” JARVIS said helpfully.

"A bit of an earlier warning would have been nice, Jay. I almost jumped out of my skin thinking it was someone else,” Tony muttered. “Brucie! Buddy! Long time no see! So glad to see you here! Really. I am. I could fucking kiss you that's how happy I am,” he called, hurrying across the room towards the Dr. Bruce, on his part, seemed hesitant.

"Wow. There really is a baby,” he said, staring at the child in the inventor's arms. Tony arched his brow.

"Why does everyone keep saying that? Why on earth would I fake that? No, you know what, don't answer that. Come, sit down, I'll explain, and all your questions shall be answered. And then you'll save me. Please save me?” he said helplessly over the increasing complaints of the baby. Elli was becoming more and more exasperated with him. “Come on, princess. Just wait an itty bitty while longer, please,” he pleaded as he sat down. Elli responded with a wail.

"So, why do you have a baby in your arms?” Bruce pressed, sinking onto the couch and looking curiously at the fussing baby. “She doesn't seem comfortable, Tony.”

"Yeah, we'll get to that part. Just bear with her- with me, for a while longer,” Tony spoke over the sound. “First, Bruce, I'll need you solemn oath this does not get out to anyone. And I mean anyone. Especially not Shield.” Bruce eyed him with growing suspicion.

"What have you done?”

"Bruce! I mean it.” Tony pressed.

"Tony, you know Shield and me are not on the best of terms. They'll get nothing from me voluntarily, on principle,” the scientist pointed out.

"Not even the other Avengers, Bruce. I mean no one,” Tony insisted, fixing the scientist with an abnormally serious stare.

"Fine Tony. Though I sense I'm going to regret this sometime later, wont I?” Banner groaned. Tony ignored that comment elegantly.

"Ok, another thing. I need you to stay calm about this. No turning green on me, buddy,” he warned.

“Oh, I don't like the sound of that. You **know** I can't promise you that, Tony,” he complained. Tony winced.

“Yeah, I know. Just- **try** to listen to the end before you judge, will you? Please,” he took a big, calming breath. Beside him, Pepper leaned over the back of the sofa and pressed the pacifier against Elli's lips. The baby took it eagerly, and Tony breathed a sigh of relief at the sudden silence. He sent a thankful gaze towards Pepper before turning back to Banner.

"Ok, here goes. Brucie, Thor came by this morning, and he had bad news for us. Bruce Loki has escaped.” Yup, that's the way to do it. Fast, like ripping off a band aid. ...right?

"Tony!” Pepper called in a scolding tone, but anything more she would have said was cut short as she looked at the scientist.

 

Bruce grew very, very still.

"What?” he asked quietly, and Tony flinched. Ok, so maybe that wasn't such a good way to go about it. Elli seemed to agree with that assumption. Those unimpressed emerald eyes seemed to say 'Ya think?!'

"Look, that's- not what I've been talking about, actually. That'll be common knowledge as soon as I can contact Steve. Or Fury. Come on, Brucie, stay with me, I need you pink, buddy,” he added quickly, looking at the green sparking in the doctor's eyes with growing worry. The Other Guy hated Loki. “Thor was positive they'll capture him again soon. He's at half capacity at best,” he reasoned, filling the still silence with babble. Slowly, some of the tension drained from the atmosphere around them. “Brucie? Are you with me?” he asked. Banner took a deep, slow breath, then exhaled it in a long hiss.

"Yes. Still here. Way to broach the subject gently, Stark,” Bruce gave him an accusing look. Tony shrugged.

"Well you know me. But that's not the point here, actually. It would just save explanations later. Look- I woke up this morning to a wicker basket with a baby inside, stranded on my soft. It was- not one of my best moments, I tell you. You must realize how it looked,” he looked down at the baby.

"So it's yours?” Bruce asked, looking a bit more startled by the idea than he had cause to be, really. Rude.

"Not- in the way you think. I'm not her father. But I AM her legal- err, ok, maybe not so legal guardian,' he offered sheepishly, giving Bruce a helpless look.

"Tony, you are not making any sense, you know that, right? Are you **trying** to be obscure?” Bruce said impatiently. And it was when Bruce turned impatient that you had to worry.

"Ok, maybe should just show you,” Tony relented. It would be faster than trying to explain anyway. “Jarv.”

 

On went the TV, and for the third time today, he had to watch Loki make his plea for Elli's life. It wasn't less distressing than the first time. If anything, it hurt more, now that she had a name, an identity. ...now that she was his. Well, to be determined, of course, but he had accepted the responsibility of being her guardian, under his roof or otherwise. And he hated, just hated, when people wanted to mess with his things. After the recording ended, he showed Banner the one of his conversation with Thor. The physicist had a brilliant mind. It would not be hard for him to connect the dots. When the screen darkened again, Bruce was once more too still and too quiet. Tony watched him cautiously. He had no idea what was going through the scientist's mind. Bruce was almost impossible to read. As the silence lingered, he started fidgeting in his seat, never one to have much patience with waiting. But Bruce was nor to be rushed. Eventually, he thawed and looked at the child in Tony's arms.

"I see,” he said quietly.

"Look, I know she's Loki's child, but she's a baby, and I just can't- after what I've heard-” Tony said nervously, trying to explain. Bruce raised a hand to halt his word.

"I understand,” he said simply. Tony felt his heart turn to a puddle of relief. Oh, thank god, he wouldn't have to get the suit. “Look, Tony, I get it. Considering how they treat their own, I don't think the Aesir would have been the best choice to give the child to. And I **know** what Shield would do with her. I know what it is to grow up with a family that doesn't like you and I wouldn't wish that for a child. And you know I do not condone torture. I can't believe they did this to him, even if it's Loki.” He heaved a sigh. “So, fine. Your secret is safe with me, and I support you,” he declared quietly. For some reason, it made Tony extremely happy. He even felt a bit teary eyed, though he would die before admitting it because- well, Stark.

“Thanks, Bruce,” he said with more warmth than he meant to show. Oh, what the heck. Big man deserved to know he was appreciated. Bruce nodded.

“I understand you want to hide the child. But what are you going to do with her?” he asked.

"Keep her. Err- here. You know, for now,” Tony provided, gesturing at the penthouse. Bruce looked stunned.

"Here? **You**? Keep a **baby**?” he stammered. Tony gave him an offended look.

"I find your shock insulting. I am a perfectly legal adult. I can take care of a child,” he retorted. Bruce arched his brow.

"What happened to 'Tony Stark doesn't **do** children'?” he asked pointedly. Tony shrugged.

"It's not like I can hire a nanny. This needs to be kept hush hush. I guess 'there's always a first' and 'never say never' and all that, y'know. I'll live,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. Bruce watched him carefully and Tony could actually **see** the surprise on his face. Which said something of the strength of that emotion.

"Pepper?” Bruce spoke inquiringly. “Are you ok with that?” was that incredulity in his tone? Oh, come on! Give a guy a little credit! Pepper, still leaning against the back of the sofa behind him, heaved a sigh.

"Yes. I am not thrilled about this, but to be honest, we have no other choice. The child is not human. We don't know how that will manifest, so an adoptive family is off the table for the moment. I will help as much as I can, but-” she spread her hands helplessly. She didn't have to say anything. Bruce shared a look of understanding with her. He was no stranger to the trials of having to come to terms with a destructive body and the power that come with it. He, too, was still struggling.

"I see. But, Tony, what do **I** have to do with all this?” he asked, his expression turning suspicious.

"I'm no better than Pepper in terms of child safety. In fact, I'm so much worse, you know that,” he pointed. Tony rolled his eyes.

"Alright first; you are not that bad, stop being a drama queen and second, relax, I'm not **dumping** her on you,” he said drily. “But I do need your help. I need you to help me figure her out,” he explained “and the faster the better!”

"Figure her out? Tony, I don't know who to take care of a child-”

"Not that!” Tony cut into his words. “-Well, a bit that. Maybe. But I mean, I need to figure out **what** she is. I don't know how long she will live, I don't know how fast she will mature, hell, I don't even know what she can **eat**!” he heard desperation sneak into his voice. It didn't help that at that point little Eli, critical thing that she was, spat the pacifier with obvious disgust and exasperation at realizing it would provide her with no food, and started wailing again. Bruce heaved a long suffering sigh.

"Tony, how many times do I have to tell you! I'm not that kind of doctor-”

"But you are the closest thing I can get close to her!” Tone forced, cutting viciously into the physicist's words. “Look, I know you don't have a medical degree, but you did all that humanitarian work and you know more than enough to get the fucking degree if you only set your mind to it and I NEED you, Bruce! Please!” he called out desperately, and fuck dignity. He needed this to work. “I need your mind, your insight, your knowledge in biology! And I need them **now**.”

 Which couldn't be more accurate because having her increasingly desperate wails ignored, Elli had had enough and she chose that exact moment, to turn **blue**.


	6. Kansas is not even in the neighborhood, Toto.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so very sorry about the long delay. I did have a holiday in the middle there, for a week, and I'm currently studying for a huge test, not to mention the pressure of the graduating year of first degree studies. People are at my neck to do so many things.... I hardly have time to write! Which, frankly, is bad, because writing keeps me sane. 
> 
> Aaaanyway, as a compensation (not an intended one but happy accidents right?) you have a duble length chapter!!  
> Please bear with me as I try to stay afloat in a sea of studies. the next chapter is always coming, even if it takes time. 
> 
> On another note, I have a request!  
> ATTENTION: If anyone can share a good source for Stark Tower's floor plans and schematic of tny's floor and the labs, the avenger floors, layouts... I'd be very grateful. Its hard to flesh things out without visualsing it in my head and I cant figure ut hw its all connected. Thank you!!
> 
> Furthermore, I'd like to thank all those who took the time to review, to bookmark and give kudos. You warm my heart and keep me writing!

"Oh FUCK!”

Later, Tony would ever justify himself for his reaction by pointing out that- well, come on! He didn't **mind** the blue, though it startled him, but the kid also turned fucking **ice cold**! Cold enough to hurt, probably cold enough to gain himself some nasty frostbite, which is totally the reason he jumped as if snake-bitten and placed the child on the couch, perhaps more roughly that he should have, and jumped back. Thank god the child was sturdier than a human child.

"TONY!” Pepper called accusingly, hurrying to check on the kid, only to stop short as she realized the chill she was emitting.

"OW! Fucking ow! What the **hell** is that?!” he cursed, shaking his stinging arms. He **needed** his arms. They were important.

"See? **See** , Bruce? I need you for **this**!” he pointed at the child, speaking over her now startled and insulted wailing. Bruce winced at the cacophony, staring at the now inhumanly blue and chilly child. Yup, definitely NOT human.

"Alright, Tony. Ok. I'll help, as much as I can,” he relented, taking a hesitant step forward.

"Oh, thank god! Thanks buddy, I owe you. I mean it.” Tony clapped a hand over his shoulder, squeezing gently. “Now, first thing I need to know is what to feed her, or we'll be hearing a lot more of this-” he gestured at the wailing child. “That, and how the hell I'm supposed to hold her when she's like that,” he furrowed his brow. “I thought 'Frost Giant' was just a name. Reindeer Games sure is not a giant. And last I've seen him, he wasn't **blue** either.” he scratched his beard as he started his pacing again, stalking the couch and its fuming occupant. Part of him wanted to go and snatch her up again, apologize for his rash reaction and try to comfort her. But the rational part of his mind kept him from doing something so foolish. He couldn't touch her while she was emitting this chill. He'd lose fingers. It was like hugging a friggin' iceberg.

Actually...

"Ha! I have an idea,” he called with renewed excitement, taking off without waiting for the others to acknowledge his words.

 

When he returned to the living-room, the others could do nothing but stare, mouths agape. Tony grinned at his own cleverness.

"I knew that alpine gear I bought for the experiment in Alaska would come in handy!” he cheered, pulling at his gloves. “And you said this sleeved comforter was stupid, Pep. Who's the wise one now?!” he teased, elegantly ignoring the fact he had bought it entirely on a whim. With a thermal shirt on, the padding of the comforter and its long sleeves, plus the insulating gloves, he made a bee line for the couch.

"Hey there, Kiddo, look who's back!” he grinned at her. “C'mon, up you go,” he grunted and reached for her, somehow managing to remember enough of Pepper's instructions to pick her up without bending, straining or snagging anything. Elli fixed him with a deeply offended look, which could have been amusing if not for the fact her once emerald eyes had turned a startling red, not just the iris but the sclera at well. They were not the same tone of red, but red they were, which was startling enough.

"Damn, kid, you get an A+ on visual effects but come on, warn a guy before you go sub-zero. Some of us are not Space-Viking-Warlock-Frost-Giant awesome hybrids, you know,” he chided her gently and he was certainly NOT cooing thank you very much. He still felt like he was hugging a big ice cube, but it was bearable, though he was kinda worried for the state of his lungs if he was forced to press that chill against his chest for long periods of time. “Ugh. I foresee pneumonia in my future,” he groaned, rocking the child gently to try and quell her crying. He exchanged a loaded look with Banner. The scientist blinked calmly.

"Strong lungs,” he commented.

"Yeah,” Tony tried not to groan again. Kid wasn't to blame, really. She just wanted food. He gave Bruce his best puppy eyes.

"Oh, alright,” Bruce said at last, raising his arms in surrender. “Look, Tony. You **know** I'm not a doctor, and I am NOT a biologist,” he started uneasily.

"Yeah yeah noted. And?”

"Well, from what I can see, and from the fact she WAS trying to suckle from the pacifier, she is a mammal in both forms. Which would mean she does drink some kind of milk. However, I cannot be sure she can digest human milk and I am not familiar with the supplements to a degree that would allow me to safely assume compatibility at this stage.” He pursed his lips. “But she must eat something, or she won't survive. In lack of information or advice, I would say it would be the safest to avoid dairy supplements altogether. There are supplements that are purely vegetal in make. Give her one of those, at least for now, until we can find out more,” he instructed at last. Tony heaved a sigh of relief.

"Oh, thank god! Alright, Jay-”

"Tony, no need,” Pepper halted his attempt to give instructions. She was by the table again, holding out one of the packets. “I ordered both dairy and non-dairy products, to be safe. Come here, I'll show you how to make it,” she said, leading him into the kitchen. He was flooded with a sudden wave of gratitude towards the woman. She was not happy with his decisions, but she never failed to help him to the fullest of her abilities.

“Ah, Pep. What would I do without you,” he said as he followed suit.

"I'm sure you'll manage,” she answered drily as she showed him how to measure powder and hot water into a plastic bottle and shake, and how to check the temperature. She spoke of washing the bottle and feeding and air bubbles, sometimes aided by JARVIS and his access to the net because though she knew a lot more than he gave her credit for, Pepper had never raised a child of her own and she was comfortable with having the AI interject when she faltered. Between the two often, Tony learned in five minutes more than he ever wanted to know about bottle feeding. He tried not to let the information overwhelm him as he took hold of the bottle.

 

"Well kid, here goes nothing. It doesn't look tasty, but trust me when I tell you it's better than starving to death. Now, let's try and make it as painless as possible for both of us. C'mon, where's the yummy bottle? You're hungry, its food...” he maintained a steady stream of words as he maneuvered the rubber nipple into the child's mouth, knowing his voice had calmed her before. Elli's wails cut short as soon as she registered its presence and she cast a wary look his way, as if saying 'yeah, last time you gave me something like this it ended up being a ruthless sham, you villain.' What?! Elli had expressive eyes. And red. Very red. She rolled the plastic teat in her mouth contemplatively, then, at last, her little mouth made an experimental suckle motion. The expression that grew on her face next was highly comical. It was somewhere half way between pleasant surprise, and unpleasant realization. Apparently, he was right. This baby food was not great on taste and for a moment, it seemed as if the girl would spit it out and resume her wailing. But it was food and by now, she was very hungry. After some contemplation, she tried again and when the taste didn't get any worse, she seemed to accept it and in a moment more, her eyes glazed and she fell into the rhythmic motion of suckling, a blissful expression on her tiny face.

"Good girl,” he hummed and he would never admit how relieved he was, to see her eat. He didn't even realize he was humming gently as he walked back to the living-room, his attention focused on the little face and the bubbles rising steadily through the white liquid in the bottle. He only noted that Bruce was giving him an odd look. Well, he must be quite the sight, Tony Stark bottle-feeding a baby. A red eyed, blue skinned baby.

In all truth, it wasn't a garish color as one would expect. Elli's skin was colored a soft powder blue, soft and silky, broken only by a series of parallel lines adorning her face, like some kind of obscure tribal tattoos. Somehow he was sure that beneath the simple linen wrapping, her body sported more of these markings. Her irises were colored a shocking crimson, the sclera a more muted, lighter red. Yet somehow red and blue did not clash as badly as one would think. And they matched quite well with the soft dark fuzz of her hair, now touched with frost at its ends. From time to time, she would make an audible suckling noise, the kind of noise that was inexplicably adorable and he smiled unconsciously at her contentment.

"You don't need much to be happy, do you kid. Frankly, I'm jealous,” he whispered. Only when the bottle was half empty did he notice that holding her was no longer like hugging dry ice. In fact, it was hardly uncomfortable at all. He reached a finger experimentally, stroking her cheek gently.

"Huh. She's only cool now,” he exclaimed.

"That's interesting,” Bruce said and Tony jumped, realizing he was standing in the middle of the living-room and Bruce had been looking at him in silence all this time. He had forgotten the physicist's presence entirely. “It seems her change manifested in reaction to her anger or stress,” he said, pursing his lips into a thin line. Well, Bruce was **the** expert on anger manifested changes, he'd know.

"I guess I called the right professional then,” Tony said with a grin. Bruce gave him an incredulous look.

"This is not funny, Tony.”

"Oh, don't be like that Brucie. You know I like the Other Guy just fine. And if the kid only goes Elsa on me every once in a while, I can totally live with that,” Tony shrugged. Really. He could work with that. He was surrounded by volatile and emotionally unstable people on a daily basis. One more teeny tiny person wouldn't matter much. “Now, do you think we can get her to the lab while she's having at this bottle and relatively content?” he asked, taking a hopeful step towards the elevator, only to remember Pepper was still here and he had been totally ignoring her for the past who-knows-how-long that Elli had been feeding. He really had lost track of time there for a moment. A searching look found said CEO sitting by the table, a stack of neatly folded baby clothes beside her, a mug of fresh coffee by her elbow, calmly going over a pile of papers that were most likely contracts and reports he would later have to sign. She lifted her gaze at his words and was now giving him the long enduring, dry look she gave him every time a project drew him down to the lab.

"Oh, go on. This needs to be done and she'll probably fall asleep soon. I'll come drag you up later to eat and feed her if you forget there's a world outside again,” she said with a sigh. He grinned at her.

“Thanks Pep. You're an angel,”

"Yeah, yeah.” With that, she was back to her stack of papers and Tony turned to pull Bruce after him into the elevator.

 

The first thing he did when he reached his lab was sweep a whole tabletop clean with an arm, carelessly tossing everything on it to the floor. Elli gave a hiccupping startled cry at the crashes and clutters and started crying again, her little lip quivering at the insult of disturbing her meal. Tony gave her an apologetic squeeze and started rocking her again.

"Hush, baby, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, honest! Come on, your bottle's right here, don't be angry, I was just making room,” he crooned, offering the bottle again until she relented and latched onto it once more with an indignant little hiccup. Bruce shook his head in silence and went about wiping the tabletop, even though it really wasn't dirty, thank you very much.

"Alright. Let's put her down and let JARVIS have a little look-see,” Tony offered.

 

Well, it turned out Ell didn't exactly like the idea, which involved the bottle being taken away from her and being taken out of Tony's hold and laid on a steel surface. Her loud protests soon convinced Tony to curb his curiosity until miss iron lungs finished her dinner. Which allowed DUM-E, who had been occupied by picking up the equipment Tony had thrown to the floor, to give in to its apparent curiosity and come investigate the noisy bundle in the inventor's arms. It wheeled around the table, whirring softly and made an inquisitive little beeping sound, raising its arm to tug at Tony's shirt. Tony butted its arm away.

"No, no, what did I say about touching things? You can look but you don't touch unless I tell you to,” the inventor chided the little robot. DUM-E lowered its arm with a sad whirr and backed away, looking as depressed as a thing without a face could ever be. Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh, don't give me that puppy look. Come here, you can look at her,” he crouched down carefully, enough for the robot to be able to catch the baby with its optics. The little robot was content to watch her eat, seemingly fascinated by the small living creature. Tony eyed it curiously. There was nothing in the old code he had written that dictated behavior towards children. He had expanded it after he had renovated the little robot, which got smashed along with his Malibu lab, but he didn't remember writing anything that dictated this curiosity, even considering the Deep Learning algorithms he had incorporated, he didn't think. But it was endearing in a way, and harmless, so he let the robot fawn over the child until Elli finished her meal and it was time to have another try at scanning.

"Come on now, princess, don't be difficult, we need to have a look at you to figure out what makes you tick, or, y'know, turn blue. You didn't exactly come with a manual, which would have been considerate of your mom, but then, Loki? Considerate? Banish the thought!” he kept a steady stream of babble coming her way, which seemed the surest way to keep her engaged and satisfied as he laid her on the desk and unwrapped her slowly, letting the enthusiastic DUM-E act as a coat hanger and hold the linen. The chill didn't seem to bother her in her blue skin, which was fortunate. “Ha, I knew the lines would extend to the rest of her body,” he called triumphantly. Bruce leaned closer beside him, fascinated. And it was a sight to behold alright. The child's whole body was accented by designs of slightly raised parallel lines, like an esoteric work of art. Quite beautiful, if you ask him. But now was not the time to marvel.

"Jarv? Work your magic,” he instructed.

"Right away Sir.” the AI answered, the machinery within he lab walls whirring quietly here and there as different input devices and scanners did their work, sending beams or invisible waves or taking pictures. Tony listened to the subtle background noise as he babbled away, making a mental note to have some maintenance done on the sensor array. Just before Elli lost her patience again, JARVIS chimed in once more.

"Scan complete. Shall I 'TLDR' for you, Sir? Or would you actually read the report this time?” he asked ever so politely. Tony rolled his eyes.

"Quit the sass, Jay. I only ever ask you to do that with financial reports and- you know, **boring** stuff.”

"The legal documents of the lawsuit against you about vandalism?”

"Yeah, boring stuff. They had no chance of winning anyway. Now less nannying and more working. Put the data on the big display and, since you insisted, run the highlights by me,” he instructed.

"Of course, Sir.” call him crazy but Tony could swear he had actually heard the AI sigh. Tony let his eyes cruise over the data as it appeared. He didn't even delve into it yet, but a few things were obviously clear even from first glance. He whistled.

"Well Brucie, we are **not** in Kansas anymore,” he exclaimed, eying the graphs as if they would change if he looked at them hard enough.

"Sir, scans indicate that even in this form and with skin temperature spiking below the point of water freezing, the child's core temperature remains steady and hotter than human average. This suggests that Miss Elli is in fact Endothermic, though the mechanism through which she regulates her internal and external temperature remains to be determined. It may be a biological mechanism, but one cannot rule out the presence of natural magic, as hinted in records of Nordic lore and some information of a more- esoteric nature,” JARVIS offered. Tony arched his brow at one of the cameras.

"Esoteric?” he asked mildly.

"Well, Sir, you were right to assume information of the subject was scarce. However, my search produced a few other sources, though I cannot attest to their reliability,” the AI explained, and Tony could swear he sounded uncomfortable.

"What sources?” He inquired.

"A book by the name of 'Monster manual', and a few others of its kind,” JARVIS said hesitantly.

 

For a moment, all Tony could do was stare.

"You- you take info from **D &D playbooks**??” he managed to choke out at last, caught between a sudden urge to giggle hysterically and the need to bang his head against the wall.

"In lack of a better source of information, Sir, I am open to the use of unusual methods. So far, I find that there are quite a few characteristics mentioned in the books that match my physical observations. And as I recall, it was you who once said that 'nerds do their homework well', was it not, Sir?” JARVIS quipped. Tony tried to blank his expression as Bruce gave him a flat look.

"I refuse to approve or deny having ever said that, despite the fact that Ha! I was right. Oh, alright, we'll take what we can get,” he rubbed his brow with a sigh. “So, Endothermic. Possibly some cold magic. Probably some cold magic,” he amended as he remembered the numbing cold she emitted just minutes before. “What more?”

"Well, according to Nordic lore, the people are referred to as Jotuns, which are spoken of as giants and are thought to be one with the ice. They are also shape-shifters, as demonstrated by Miss Elli a few minutes ago. However, the lore dictates that in their natural form, Jotun are both male and female in nature and are able to conceive young regardless of the way they view themselves as. Most of their mentions in the Eddas refer to them as carrying themselves as males, despite that fact. Only once is the 'elder sister of the Jotun' mentioned, namely a specimen which carries itself as female. However Miss Elli displays no male genitalia in both forms. Whether this is due to the other half of her heritage or a natural occurrence in Jotun remains to be discovered.” Well, **that** thought threw Tony up for a loop.

“Oh, thank whoever the fuck listens for THAT! I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm very into 'be who you want to be' and gay pride and everything, but I'm almost certainly **not** the best person to deal with a little child's questions about the 'down below and why it's different',” he said vehemently. Really, the very thought made him want to lock himself behind the bullet-proof walls of his lab and never get out.

"That's god's own truth,” Bruce mumbled. “JARVIS? What about the ridges?” he asked, indicating one of the lines on Elli's arm with the tip of a finger. And it seemed the child's temperature was nearing bearable because, with a careful curiosity on his face, he let the pad of his finger touch her skin. Before long, he was tracing the lines on Elli's arm gently, examining the difference in texture with seemingly no ill effects. The child pierced him with a crimson eyed stare for a moment, then seemed to decide his touch was acceptable and returned to kicking her legs idly. And Tony could swear the doctor's whole visage softened as he looked at her. Ha! He knew it. Bruce was a big softie after all.

"The stripes seem to be a natural phenomenon in Jotun, Dr Banner. The few sources that mention them hint that they might be the manifestation of genetic lineage, a visualization of an individual's pedigree and ancestral bloodlines and a way for Jotun to establish hierarchy. It is unknown if they have other uses or traits,” the AI provided.

"Wait! Does it mean that Loki actually looks the same? I mean, the stripes and stuff- oh wow! Imagine Reindeer Games in his fancy getup, miles tall and all stripy blue! Damn, he should have gone for that! People might have knelt without him asking,” Tony mused with a grin.

"'Striking' is not the word I would use,” Bruce said drily, his expression darkening just a tad, which was a big expression on his face, if you knew Bruce.

"Oh, Brucie, don't say things like that, I know you have a problem with the green-”

"I don't have a problem with his color, Tony. I'm worried that **you** may have a problem,” he retorted, looking up at Tony with an expression all too sober for the inventor's liking.

"What do you mean?” Tony told himself he did NOT sound defensive. Bruce put his folded glasses down on the desk beside the still content Elli and sighed.

"Tony, the kid is innocent. I can't and won't argue about that. I agree she needs to be protected and heavens forbid Fury finds out about her, which is why we need to edit what gets out about this. But I'm afraid you are letting your fascination with her and the circumstances change your view about Loki. The man is a killer. His head is a full bag of cats. I agree that he has been wronged, that he appeared to have been tortured and that it is far from the right treatment for a prisoner and surely not what he **needs** to get better, if that can even be done. **But** ,” he raised a finger “You can't let that make you forget the danger he poses. So do not think of him as harmless. Do not speak of him as harmless. Don't let your guard down and for heaven's sake, if you have information about his whereabouts you haven't shared, don't hide it.” Tony opened his mouth to say something, probably negate the outrageous accusations, but Bruce raised his hand. “I **know** you, Tony. You think you can fix everything but some things are not for you to fix. You do the same with the Other Guy. You think of him as just a guy with anger issues. You ignore the danger. I ask you again; Don't.”

 

Tony let the silence settle over the lab for a long moment. Not because he had nothing to say, but because he didn't want to spew the first thing on his mind into the air. It rarely did any good and he wanted Bruce to know he was taking this seriously.

"Bruce, buddy, you know I like you. I probably like you more than I do most of the people around me because, well, you get me. I get you. We're science bros. But don't think for a moment I underestimate you or the Other Guy. I don't make mistakes like that anymore. I owe the fist-sized hole in my chest and a whole lot of metal shards to the last time, and believe me it still stings.” Oh, how it did. And for more than just the ache when the shrapnel moved, or the pressure of the metal support of the reactor on his lungs. The betrayal still burned white hot in his chest, filling his lungs with bitter dark water in his dreams, remembered along with plastered smiles and false faces. His mouth was feeling dry again and he ached for the bottle of Scotch under his desk, but he needed a clear head for now. He really needed Bruce on his side.

“Point is, I don't share your opinion of the Big Green, because frankly I think you're biased, but I never underestimate him. I take precautions, like the fortifications of your floor, some countermeasures in this lab and yours, the Mark 44 and a whole lot I probably neglected to mention.” He was not sure what emotion lurked beneath the calm on the physicist's face. There was relief there, and let's face it, Tony knew he deserved that one. But he wished his friends would understand that the fact he always seemed light-hearted and cocky didn't mean he never thought things through. Well, mostly. “See, unlike you, I would rather accommodate the Hulk and let him be who he is, rather than try to choke him down. I don't think it's healthy to suppress this much anger, and I don't need to be 'that kind of doctor' to know that. You think I flirt with danger, and I **have** flirted with many a dangerous thing, if you know what I mean,” he stopped to wag his brows at Bruce, which seemed wholly unimpressed “But, and take that as you may, I've learned to take precautions. I will not be responsible for mass destruction again. Not if I can help it. So rest assured, I got your back, AND I got you covered. And as for Loki, I have no idea where he is and believe me, I haven't forgotten the destruction and death he had caused. I wouldn't have let him get away if I knew, though I may have had quite a few things to say about the treatment he was getting. I know he's dangerous, Bruce. I don't underestimate him. I don't deny Elli herself can be quite dangerous, despite her utter cuteness. Which brings us back to the thing we're all gathered here for,” he gestured at the child, who was staring at him during his monologue with what looked like fascination. He grinned. “Finally, someone who appreciates good rhetoric skills!” he said pointedly, giving Bruce a toothy grin. The physicist rolled his eyes and sighed.

 

"I understand, Tony. And... Thank you,” he clapped a hand over Tony's shoulder for a brief squeeze, which was actually a lot for the reclusive scientist, if Tony had to say so himself. “Is there anything more you can tell us, JARVIS?” he asked.

"Quite a bit, Dr Banner. But not much I can confirm. I would suggest moving little Miss Elli to the medical scanner. It would give me a more in-depth look into her physique and provide insight my normal scanners cannot give,” the AI offered.

"Coming right at ya, buddy,” Tony gathered the baby into his arms, forgoing the thick comforter and gloves this time, since Bruce had demonstrated it was safe enough to touch her and hell if he was going to treat the child like an untouchable when he didn't have to.

The tube of the medical scanner was cold against his arms as he placed Elli inside. She looked so small on that gurney, surrounded by machinery, that it made his heart ache oddly. The child's crimson eyes remained on him as the machinery whirred quietly and the scanners did their work, as if the sight of him kept her calm. Well, that and sucking on her own fingers, which was utterly adorable and highly un-hygienic at the same time. It took a moment for information to start streaming onto the holographic screen of the scanner, even with Banner manning the controls and JARVIS directing the scan. When it finally did, well-

All the two men could do was stare.

 

"Oh, **fuck** ,” Tony cursed with true feeling. Beside him, Bruce was blinking rapidly through his glasses, staring at the screen as if it would change if he stared enough.

The body scan that was displayed on the screens was very clearly **not** human.

"Is that- is that a kidney, there?” Tony poked at the screen hesitantly. “That's- that's about the right place, but- what is THAT?” he pointed at an organ which resembled nothing he knew from any of his occasional forays into the field of biology. “That- that's a heart, there, it has to be, but the shape...” he let his voice fade as he shifted his stare from the child to the screen and back. “Oh, we are SO fucked. I don't recognize half of this and it's a living body!” he felt panic clamp around his chest again, making his breath come in shallower and shallower bursts. “I know she's an alien but I thought she'd at least be close! How can we even make sense out of all of this? She can become terminally ill and we won't even know! What are we- what am I-” He could only recall a scant few times in his life when his mind grew completely blank with shock. This was one of them. The world turned fuzzy and unfocused around him and he only gradually became aware of the insistent tugging on his sleeve.

"-ny? Tony. **Tony**!” He snapped out of his stupor at Bruce's shout and looked down to see DUM-E still tugging on his sleeve, chirping worriedly. “Tony, are you with me?” Bruce's hand landed on his shoulder and he jumped. “It's alright, come on, look at me. It'll be alright,” the physicist was insistent and eventually, his words broke through Tony's mounting trepidation, enough to ground him. Funny, how many times Bruce had to fill that part since New York.

“How the hell is it going to be alright, Bruce? We have zilch. I don't recognize about half her organs and that's before considering her mixed species. Where would we even start?!” But Bruce, bless his heart, remained clam.

“Isn't that what you called me for? Look, I'm not saying it's not a mess, but it's not a dead end, either. I'll study the scans in depth. I'll consult the books and pull out the old biology textbooks. I have a friend who's a doctor. We used to work together when I did humanitarian work. Let me call him. I'll ask some subtle questions and maybe get some hints,” the physicist offered.

"You can't tell him about her,” Tony warned, eying the screens worriedly and trying to decide how much he liked the idea of involving another person in this, even indirectly.

"I know. I'll be careful not to ask anything too obvious and I'll make sure nothing can be traced back to you. I wouldn't want to involve him in anything that can ultimately get him in trouble if I can't help it. But if push comes to shove, he's trustworthy. See- he's a very certain kind of doctor,” Bruce emphasized. “Golden heart, but he's not afraid to do what he thinks needs to be done to lend aid where it's needed.” he smiled grimly. “Back in the day, he got a few hundreds of crates full of medicine across the border, giving them to people who couldn't hope to afford them free of charge. I never asked where and how he got them, but I helped him transport and distribute them a few times,” he explained. Tony arched his brow.

“You? Goody two shoes, Mr. 'stay off the radar', being a smuggler? Oh do tell!” he leaned forward with grin despite his still racing heart because come on, you can't just hear that and not want to hear the juicy details. Bruce heaved a long suffering sigh.

“It's not as glorious as you probably think. In the humanitarian line of work, you are often faced with the futility of your own efforts. You can determine what kind of sickness a man is suffering from and still watch helplessly as he dies because there is no medicine to be found, or he can't afford it. Medicine you can buy in every convenience store in the US, but no one allows to export to such countries because it's not beneficial. Jerry is the kind of guy who would die trying after most of us gave up and made peace with the death around us. He's resourceful and has connections I would never imagine him owning. And he also happens to owe me some favors,” the physicist shrugged as Tony eyed him incredulously. “Don't look at me like that. I asked no questions, he told me no lies, we saved lives. Oh, and one other thing,” he added thoughtfully, as if he thought it would matter in the grand scheme of things “He kind of, sort of, knew about the Other Guy, back before it was common knowledge.” Well, that **was** a surprise.

"Huh? I thought you hid under the radar like a sewage rat, back before the Avengers, running from Shield and stuff?” Tony inquired pointedly.

"Yeah, I was really trying. But smuggling in war ridden countries is not exactly safe. We got held up by the militia once. They ambushed us and blew the road before us. Jerry went flying and hit his head pretty badly, along with a few other things. I flew as well, but the Other Guy took charge as I took the beating. Jerry was really concussed, but he did remember parts of it. I tried to deny it as best as I could, saying he didn't know what he was seeing and he relented, but he always knew something was off. He never told anyone, Tony. Not even when it could gain him a lot. And he never cared that this is what I am. If I wasn't afraid of getting him into more trouble than ever, I'd trust him with Elli without batting an eye.”

 

Wow. Tony forgot the tightness in his chest as he watched Bruce silently. Just wow. He never thought Bruce was able to trust in this way. The guy must really be something, and Tony didn't know if he was jealous or happy for the physicist. But the argument still stood. They couldn't bring more people into this. Not now, maybe not ever. Bruce raked his fingers through his hair and put his glasses down.

“Look, just take Elli and get her some clothes, put her to bed and for all that's pure, get something decent to eat. I know you well enough to know when you've been science binging without proper food. I'll stay here and do my homework, talk to my friend, ask some careful questions. Right now she seems fine, so I'll take those preliminary readings as an example of her healthy state. I suggest we scan her every day for a few weeks and monitor the changes. Perhaps it'll give us a clue about her aging rate, at least in the cellular level. Right now, I think you should take her off the gurney before- oh, well, too late,” Tony snapped his attention to the baby in the scanner just in time to see a puddle of wetness spreading beneath the child. Ew. Really.

"Oh, come on, Elli, that equipment's new,” he complained, lifting her off the gurney and holding her at arm's length while he looked frantically for something to wipe her dry with. Bruce chuckled in amusement and offered him a box of tissues, then leaned over the gurney and carefully swabbed some of the liquid into a cup.

"What the **hell** are you doing?” Tony asked in disgust. Bruce shrugged as he cupped the little container and proceeded to wipe the surface dry with the tissues.

"Well, since she provided it, I thought I'd take a urine sample as well. Can't hurt. Lucky the gurney is sterilized,” he explained. Tony wrinkled his nose and did what he could with the tissues, then took the wrapping linen from the waiting and excited DUM-E and wrapped it around the child. Elli watched him all the while with what he thought of as her critical look.  
“Yes? Would you like to offer pointers, your highness?” he asked her with a roll of his eyes. But Ell ignored the snark altogether in fact she seemed to relax at the sound of his voice, especially when he held her against him again and his chest vibrated against her little body. Swathed in warmth again, she yawned, the little eyes falling closed in a slow blink, and pink started crawling across her face, replacing the blue. “Uh, Bruce!” he called, drawing the Physicist's attention to the transformation.

"Quick put her on the gurney. Wrap and all!” Bruce urged. They both watched with aw as readings started flowing to the screens even as Elli, undisturbed by the whirring of machines, completed the transformation from blue to pink

"Whoa. Some of her organs just disappeared and everything rearranged- ugh, how does it NOT hurt?” he wondered weakly. Bruce shrugged.

"It wouldn't be very effective if it did. She looks a bit more similar to humans now,” he offered. Tony tried to be comforted by that but it was hard. The sheer helplessness of the situation made him want to giggle hysterically. Which, if he had to think about it, was not a good sign.

"Ok. Ok. She's pink, we're going, I'll get her into one of those ridiculous little outfits, somehow- and - and think on from there. Jarv, be a dear and add Brice to the list of authorized entrance to this lab. Help him if you can, will you?”

"Of course, Sir. May I suggest you make use of a disposable diaper when you dress Miss Elli? Studies suggest that an infant's digestive system expels waste at a higher rate than an adult and that such activity often occurs an hour or so after consuming nourishment-”

"Sheesh, go into the gory details why don't you. I get it, babies turn input into output with good complexity, noted,” Tony quipped. Bruce gave him a dirty look

"God, Tony that was so nerdy.”

"Says the physicist who loves cheesy Sci-Fi movies to a fault,” Tony teased with the start of a grin, but it didn't quite get there before it softened. “Thanks, Bruce. I really really owe you one. Two. A dozen. Really, just name your price.”

"Oh, go already!” Bruce shooed him out into the elevator, then patted DUM-E's hood as the robot enthusiastically got in his way and turned back to the screens. As the doors closed, Tony couldn't help but Grin down at Elli.  
“You find friends in the strangest of places. Take that from me, Kid.” Elli blinked calmly at him, then closed her eyes and dozed off.

 


	7. Who Thought This Was a Good Idea Again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, getting really original with the titles there....  
> I am so very utterly sorry about taking so long!! Its exam season, and I have no time to breath let alone write! What more, I couldnt find a good place to end this chapter so I ended up doing a double length one again! So yup, it takes time.  
> on other notes, I'm still having a problem envisioning stark tower so again, if anyne has floor plans or good descriptions of his apartment and the avenger floors, I"ll be indebted to you.  
> I'm sure I had more things to address here, but its 2 am and I cant think straight XD. I'll add endnotes for this chapter if I remember anything. 
> 
> Thank you, thank you thank you, all of you who have taken the time to read this, offer Kudos and even bookmark, and I would like to thank all the commenters too! You are the ones who keep me writing!

By the time the elevator pinged and admitted him into his own floor, Elli was half asleep. He envied the infant's ability to go back to sleep that easily. God, he was tired, and the light filtering through the large windows told him it was only noon. Hell, he usually didn't wake up until this part of the day when he didn't have anything pressing to do. Frankly, he was a night-bird. Always has been, though the habit was cemented after Afghanistan and the disturbing dreams that kept plaguing his nights. Not to mention the escalation after New York. Nowadays, he only went to bed when he was so tired he was certain he'd get a few hours of senseless, exhausted sleep. Whatever worked, right?

 

He stepped across the living room quietly, making his way to the kitchen, where he suspected he might find his quarry. It seemed Pepper hasn't moved at all since he left. She was still sitting by the table, papers strewn across it before her, her pen running across the pages and the fingers of her other hand running calculations and typing notes in her phone. That big mug of coffee was still resting by her elbow, though it was empty and he was sure it was not for the first time. Only the new scorch marks on the kitchen floor in the middle of the room were a proof she ever moved. She must have had to deal with a few work calls and reports. That always rendered her, uh- volatile. He was so glad he had instructed JARVIS to stop the sprinkler sequence when Pepper was present. A soggy and smoking Pepper was very hard to deal with. He didn't say anything about it, though. Laughing about it had proved to be a very, very **bad** idea. Touchy subject. It was hard enough to convince her to let him pay for fireproofing her apartment, after they decided to spend some time apart. He really wanted to stay on her good side, especially considering his recent- uh, well, he didn't really know what to call it. How **do** you call it when a mental alien war criminal sneaks into your living room and saddles you with an infant?

 

"Hey Pep. You're going to work yourself to an early grave, you know that? Take it from me, I don't pay you enough for this,” he said as he placed Elli down on the table. The infant gave a convicted cry of protest at the removal of arms and body head from around her. Pepper raised her gaze from the page at his voice, surprise written clearly on her face.

"Tony? I didn't have to drag you up to eat? Is something wrong? The baby-?” she asked suspiciously. Tony rolled his eyes.

"No, nothing wrong, well- except that I'm currently in charge of a baby alien and she can come down with some alien flu at any moment and I won't even know! Fuck, Pep, she's not **human** inside. In either form. Oh, by the way, **yes** , her internal organs **change shape** when she changes color! But other than that, we're pee-chee,” his chest started heaving again as he spoke and he gave himself a mental shake. Come on! Not here, not in front of Pepper. He still had hope of convincing her he was NOT a complete nut job. He reached for one of the folded baby outfits in an effort to distract himself. “So, Bruce threw me out of the lab and told me to get Miss Blue here dressed before she messes up the wrappings, or my medical gurney,” he turned the outfit this way and that, trying to get a sense of what state was 'upright' and through which hole one should fit what. It was ridiculously complex. Fuck, how come he could read blueprints for anything from chips to buildings through every weapon imaginable, yet he couldn't understand how to align a onesie?

“I'm also under orders to eat, so takeout it is. How do you feel about Chinese? Oh, come on! This thing has to be defective,” he flipped the garment again and tried to understand how the hell he was supposed to get it on the baby without breaking any limbs. He didn't notice that Pepper abandoned her seat until her hand touched his own, taking the garment from him. Her side pressed against his in a familiar way and for a moment, all he wanted was to bury his head in her shoulder and ignore the world. But he couldn't, and she won't like it, and they were on **break**. And hell if that didn't make him feel cold and so very lost.

 

"I can't stay, Tony,” she said gently. “I've already lost my temper three times and it's not even past noon. You have made my apartment fireproof enough to be comfortable, and I thank you for that. It enables me to keep working from home, and that's the best I can do for the moment. It's what I **should** do. I still have five meetings I need to attend via video connection and need to debrief my attendant, thank god for her. She's dependable. Soon enough, she'll be able to replace me entirely,” she offered while she showed him how to open the thing and pass Elli's head through the neck hole.  
“Why, are you planning on going somewhere?” he asked, trying his best to sound nonchalant. God, Tony, don't be clingy, don't you dare. No surer way to send any sane woman running. But fuck, the words hurt. Pepper was one of the few constants in his life. He didn't want that to change.

"I don't have any pressing plans, no,” Pepper said drily. “But Tony,” her voice softened “Try as you might to ignore it, things are changing. I have changed. I love my job, but right now I am not doing it very well. I may one day learn to control my fire. But if it's not soon... I am preparing for all options,” she let her voice trail off and focused on passing Elli's little fists through the sleeves. Kid has been half asleep minutes ago but now she was surprisingly fussy, making small sounds of discontentment. Tony tried his best to pay attention because he needed to know this and he was NOT thinking about Pepper leaving the company because there was only so much he could take on one day and this was totally not **fair**.

 

"Look, Tony-”

"No. Pep, no,” he cut into her words, and if there was pleading in his voice he would be the last to ever admit it, but- “Please, not now. We're not talking about this now. Not this too, with the baby and Loki and shit hitting the fan and Thor going on the big hunt- I can't do this right now. I need- I need at least one aspect of my life to stay stable or I'm going to put that damn wicker basket over my head and take a deep plunge down Loony Lane. Please.” Pepper pursed her lips, but she didn't choose to press it, for which Tony was very grateful.

"Alright, Tony, okay. As I said, no urgent plans. I'll make do,” she relented, going about getting Elli into a diaper and the rest of that outfit. “There you are, honey. All dressed up and ready,” she said gently, and Tony wasn't sure he wasn't imagining it but did Pepper sound- fond? It could be just the normal baby-effect, of course. But it was something.

 

Which, he should have known was too good to last, as proven in the next moment when Pepper turned to regard him with a sober Look.

"But, I do think we should think about what are you going to tell Shield before I go,” she stated. Oh, fuck. Yes. He still needed to talk to Fury about Loki. What a great conversation **that** was going to be. He took Elli back into his arms when the baby continued to fuss and started pacing restlessly again. Hey, it seemed to work before, and he was going to pace anyway. Multitasking, who said men couldn't do it?

"Ugh. Not looking forward to that. Well, I was going to just tell them what Thor told me, you know, Loki escaped, the Big Hunt, yadda yadda don't kill the messenger and all that. Why, did you have anything else in mind?” he asked with a quirked brow. Pepper pinched the bridge of her nose. “What? What am I missing? That's a 'Tony, I thought you were a genius so why do I have to tell you stuff' look. That's unfair,” he pointed a finger at her.

"Tony, the **baby**. What are you going to tell everyone about the baby?” she asked slowly, and really, did she have to use the 'slow kid' tone? That was offensive! He rolled his eyes.

"Nothing, Pep. I thought it was obvious. Did you miss the whole 'no one must know she's here' and 'family is going to make her disappear' talk? I thought it was quite straight forward,” he answered. Aaaand, Pepper was still looking at him as if looking for head trauma.

"Tony, there is no way you can **hide** her! People are going to notice you walking around with a baby. And you have to tell Shield **something**! What will you do the next time the Avengers assemble? The baby is too young to be left alone for hours, what are you going to do with her?”

 

Oh.

Oh, **fuck.**

"Fuck! I- oh, Fuck, I completely overlooked that!” Tony admitted with chagrin. Of course he couldn't just leave her alone! When the team assembled, they often fought for several hours, sometimes ongoing situations lasted for days! There was no way he could leave her for that long. But what could he do? “I- I can't bring uninvolved people into this,” he groaned. He couldn't just get someone to babysit. Maybe Bruce-? But no, no, Tony, NOT a brilliant idea to leave the volatile, green-optioned guy to take care of a baby alone. Pepper had been totally on spot with that.

 

"Maybe I can program Jarv-” he started, but nope. Nope, because JARVIS has no hands, he wouldn't be able to change her or feed her, the robots are not gentle enough to help and the usual solution of rigging something fast and taking the knocks of non-thorough design will NOT work with a baby. He's a reckless Jerk but not THAT kind of a reckless jerk. Damn it! How the hell did he end up walking willingly into colossal messes all the fucking time?

"I'm an idiot. There, you can say it, I won't stop you,” he groaned. So **like** him to completely overlook the most basic of human things. See? This is what he didn't **do** people. “See? Told you. Horrible father,” he muttered to the infant in his arms. Elli seems undeterred. In fact, she was more interested in the taste of her own fingers than his self-accusations at the moment. He looked at her, feeling completely lost. How was he going to do this? How, how was he going to care for her, and balance his duties as well? He couldn't. He couldn't tell anyone, he couldn't get help, he couldn't neglect her, and he couldn't, just **couldn't** sit back and watch from the sidelines as people did his job and ended up hurt. Because he would know. He would know he could have been there, could have prevented things from going south. Just like that, every accident, every little thing gone wrong will become his own failing, his own guilt. He knew himself enough to know he just couldn't live with that. Would he be forced to choose, then? Would he be forced into tearing himself apart over this new and unwanted responsibility thrust into his arms?

“Loki, you jerk,” he hissed, quelling an urge to kick the walls. Been there, done that, his little toe would never be the same. He bit his lip almost hard enough to bleed and closed his eyes, willing the weight in his chest to lift, the caged feeling to fade away. JARVIS had provided him with countless filmed tutorials of breathing exercises and guided meditation just for such occasions, but usually they did little when the panic came.

No, he can't choose. And yet-

"Look- I need time. I can't decide anything now, I don't **know** enough! It's like diffusing a bomb with my teeth while blindfolded and my hands tied behind my back. I just- I can't quit, Pepper.” he raked his fingers through his hair, clutching the child to him. Elli made a little sound of distress, as if feeling his inner turmoil. Well, that, or maybe she was just protesting the way he squished her. Tony hanged a pained look at Pepper. "You know me, Pep. You know I can't sit back and do nothing while people get hurt. I can't leave the others like that. And- I can't tell them. Not now, maybe- I don't know,” he resumed his pacing, worrying the hem of Elli's outfit with his fingers distractedly.

"Look, give me a few weeks. I'll- I don't know, I'll invent something. Injury, family emergency-”

"Tony, you don't have any living family members,” Pepper interjected. Tony grimaced because really, as if he needed a **reminder** he was all alone.

"-then something else. Something that will prevent anyone from coming to visit me while they're in the tower. I'd go hide in Malibu, but I need Bruce and I can't in good conscience take him away from the team. I know he sits out most of the time but if something big happens- ugh! This is impossible!” he heaved an exasperated sigh and took a few slow, calming breaths. “Look, I will figure this out. I only need time. Stall for me, pretty please? Work your PR magic?” he gave her his best puppy eyes while he fished for his phone. Something told him Lab-time was just not going to happen today. Pepper gave him a flat, unimpressed look, but broke eventually, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Illness. Something contagious, maybe. They know you well enough to know you'd rather bring the hospital to you than go there. That or injury- perhaps with contamination. The nanites! Tell them you've been experimenting with Extremis and- something went wrong,” she offered reluctantly. Tony could understand her reluctance. Even the thought of more experiments on the artificial virus made Pepper edgy. As an idea, though, it was brilliant.

"That's the stuff! Yup, that's exactly what I need! I'll tell them I released it into the air in my lab! Each floor in the tower can be insulated from outside, I made sure of it myself, so I'll be able to prevent an all-out panic AND keep everyone out of here! I'll just have to smuggle Bruce out, and have him tell stories of protective suits and yadda yadda. Pep, you're awesome. I'll polish it as I go, you know the drill. Just swear to anything I say,” he gave her a shit eating grin, and was awarded with an expression of long suffering tolerance. “You're the best. Sure you don't want to stay for lunch?”

 

Pepper seemed somewhat relieved, at least as far as he could read Pepper's expression, which, to be completely honest, was not his major. She wasn't happy, but she wasn't as stressed. She shook her head and raised a hand.

"Tony, I feel like a 50 years old woman with the mother of all heat flashes. I'm quite sure it's safer if I head home and stay there for a while, with calm and quiet and Zen music. Not that it helps much, but it sure is safer for the floors of your home, not to mention your skin,” true enough, there was this gleam under her skin, like tiny embers. Her skin looked like paper one held over a fire, made semitransparent because of the light. He pursed his lips, but nodded.

"I'll have Happy wait up front with the fire-proofed car.”

"The what?” Pepper did a double take, eying him with a mix of surprise and suspicion. “Tony! You didn't!”

"I did, consider it a gift and accept it, because the car service doesn't like combusting clients and it's safer and I can do it for you so suck it up,” he ordered, pointing his finger accusingly at her. He was waiting for just the right moment to give it to her, knowing she would refuse otherwise. When she didn't object immediately, he considered it a win. In fact, she sort of looked at a loss for words. She shook her head at him, kind of like one does at a beloved pet that made a mess, which was somewhat degrading, but she did smile, which he considered another win.

"Thanks, Tony,” she said at last, with none of the dryness in her voice. This was the Pepper he remembered, back when everything was fine. He missed that Pepper. Yet, he said nothing as he helped her pick her documents into a fireproof case and walked her to the elevator.

"See you soon, Pep. Take care,” he said, then finally, gave in to the urge, indulged himself just a little and snatched up her hand, planting a quick, fleeting kiss on the back of it before releasing it as if it was scalding hot. Which, it was.

"Tony! I can burn you!” Pepper scolded, snatching her hand back. He grinned at her through stinging lips, shaking his hand while supporting Elli with the other.

"Ow. Yet totally worth it!” he informed her. She gave him back that 'you're a reckless man with a death wish and I'd be disappointed if I didn't know you all too well' look she perfected over the years. Pepper had **very** descriptive looks sometimes. He shrugged and grinned back innocently, shifting Elli in his arms. Pepper's eyes followed his for a moment, and she sighed.

"You'd better lay her down somewhere safe and let her sleep. I left ordering a crib to you as I don't know where you'd like to put it,” she offered. She was hovering. Tony knew her well enough to know how worried she must be to do so.

"It's ok, Pep. I'll take care of it. Go get some peace and quiet,” he poured warmth into his voice because truly, he wished her well. He hoped that, after everything was said and done, she knew that.

"Tony, are you sure you'll be alright?” she asked, reaching for him instinctively and pulling her hand back at the last minute as she remembered her current temperature and he knew the gesture pained them both.

"Don't worry, Pep, I'll be fine.”

"If something happens, call me, promise me,”

"I will. But there won't be need. I can do this, Pep,“ he said confidently, giving her his signature grin. She didn't seem impressed, but she said nothing more of the matter. He watched as the elevator's doors closed behind her in silence and tried not to let the sudden emptiness of his home fill his heart with echoes. “I can do this.”

XxxxXxxxX

 

"I can't do this,” Tony groaned.

He knew he was being melodramatic, he knew he had essentially brought this over himself with his damn 'what can go wrong' confidence. But 20/20 hindsight never helped anyone, least of all him, and he was deep in the mud. Or well, in something else.

 

He had put Elli down for a nap, placing her on the middle of his bed and building a wall of pillows around her at JARVIS's not-so-gentle prodding to prevent her from somehow rolling off, not that he thought it possible. It was a king sized bed for crying out loud. He ate the food the ever helpful JARVIS had ordered for him while he had been speaking with Pepper, badgered the AI to order a crib and a few other necessities he could think of, then threw himself down near the infant's makeshift pillow fortress slash crib and brought up the alarm and defense protocols in his Starkpad. He needed to make some serious upgrades and coding always cleared his mind and helped him think.

 

Most people thought about coding as a time and attention consuming occupation that needed the programmer's full brain capacity. Tony couldn't see why. Sure, he needed to think about it but it has become second nature for him, no different than speaking another language. Of course, having the AI monitor the changes in his own code was helping. As well. Most people would think that letting an AI review his own code and have editing permission was a very bad idea, but Tony was not most people, and JARVIS- JARVIS was special. Having a specialized compiler built specifically for the AI's code, to which only Tony and said AI had access helped as well. Back when he had built JARVIS Tony decided to work from the ground up and actually built a personal compiler. It added a few layers of security to his code and made things so much more fluent. Besides, it was a fucking work of art, if he could say so himself. He could practically tell the compiler what to do and get lines of code. Vocally. And that didn't even begin to cover the complexity and awesomeness of the code he **built** with it.

All those things left him a lot of time to think while he worked and he used that time to think of a battle plan. Namely, what he was going to tell Fury and his hounds.

 

It didn't take long, though, for his eyelids to become heavy and stingy with lack of sleep. The soft, near to silent sound of rhythmic breathing wasn't helping either. His yawns became wider and wider, making him worry for the integrity of his jaw and finally he gave up.

"Jarv, save everything and store this. I need some shut eye after that rude awakening. Wake me up if Bruce finds something big. Oh, don't let him leave before he talks to me. We need to match our stories for the others,” he spoke through a jaw wrenching yawn.

"I will make sure Doctor Banner is informed, Sir. Sleep well,” the lights dimmed without his prompt and the windows turned semi opaque. Tony smiled. Maybe the AI was feeling remorse for the morning. Maybe. He really needed to take a close look at his learning algorithms.

 

He woke up with a startle fuck-knows-how-long later into a semi darkness and the insistent cries of an infant. He sat up in the dark, disoriented and tried to make his heart stop hammering in his chest hard enough to hurt. He could actually feel the shrapnel jolt in rhythm with the frantic beating. It made him sick. It took him a long moment to realize what the cries were and why there was a baby in his room. His head felt as if he had been drinking cheap booze all night long and he didn't feel rested at all.

"Ugh, I hate short naps. JARVIS, light,” he groaned, then crawled his way to the pillow fortress and peeked into it.

"Hey, Kid, have you ever thought of getting a part time job as an alarm?” he drawled, his voice sluggish and gravelly with sleep. Elli wasn't impressed with his crankiness in the least. In fact, she went on to show him her own brand of it, the timbre of her cries rising now that she had an audience. “God, what time is it?”

"It is six in the afternoon, Sir. Doctor Banner has been inquiring as to your well-being. He has relented to wait until you wake before leaving for his floor,” the AI provided.

"What? Why haven't you woken me up?”

"Sir, you indicated I should wake you up in case Doctor Banner has found something big. His findings have been moderate at best and I wished for you to regain some energy. I saw no pressing need to wake you, especially considering the fact the Doctor Banner had sank back into work and had lost track of time,” JARVIS said dutifully. Tony rubbed a hand over his face and raked his hair with his fingers until it resembled something civil.

"Mother Hen. That's what you are,” he grumbled, though there was no real animosity behind his words. He did manage to get some sleep, after all. “Alright, little fog horn, what's wrong? Why are you testing those iron lungs again?” he said as he lifted the infant up into his arms. Elli's cries reduced their volume as soon as his arms closed around her, but they never ceased, just took on what seemed to be a more intimate kind of complaining. Red rimmed emerald eyes bore into his in accusation and the little mouth was puckered in a pout that was all insult.

"What? What did I do?” he asked, bouncing her lightly in his arms. Elli seemed to take that as an invitation to tell him exactly what he did wrong, to the best of her ability. Her wails held the promise of another headache in their wings and Tony knew he was under equipped to deal with it at the moment. He needed coffee. No, he needed scotch, and then a coffee. Scotch laced coffee. Yup, double that order please. If only he could go and get it and then come back and deal with this- but nope. Responsible adult and all that.

"Please, Kid, tune down just a bit, come on, be a nice little alien baby,” he groaned, rising to his feet somewhat unsteadily while trying to keep a firm hold of her.

"Sir,” JARVIS scolded, obviously not impressed with his phrasing. Well, tough luck.

"Well, she **is** an alien child. Just telling it like it is. Also, not in the mood for preaching. Come on, baby, what do you **want**?” he was embarrassingly close to whining.

"Sir, might I suggest a diaper change?” the AI said in his 'lets-aid-the-hopeless-human' tone, which was rude, really, and unfair because come on, where would Tony have gotten any experience from? But that aside, it was a good place to start, and a cautious sniffing told him he had hit jackpot. or- well, some kind of pot, anyway. And now that he gave it a real thought, he realized that he really, **really** , didn't want to do this.

"Ew. No really, Elli, ew. Jarv, how early can babies be potty-trained, again?” he asked while he carried Elli around the room at arm's length, searching desperately for a place fit to be turned into a changing station.

"I would assume not before they can walk, Sir,” the AI answered ever so drily.

"I swear I'm going to reset your behavioral learning matrix if you keep being this rude. Obviously, you've been hanging with the wrong crowd,” Tony said sulkily as he swiped the top of a dresser clear of miscellaneous and expensive toiletries and placed Elli on top of it.

"I have been prioritized to model my behavior after yours, I believe, Sir,” JARVIS deadpanned. At which point Tony threw dignity to the winds and threw a pillow at one of his cameras. And he could swear he could hear the AI clear his nonexistent throat indignantly. Really.

"Sometimes I'm too good of a programmer” he muttered just short of JARVIS's audio range, just to be the one to say the last word. And then he remembered he left all the baby things on the kitchen table.

"Fuck. JARVIS, watch the kid,” he shot as he placed two more pillows to prevent the baby from rolling off the dresser, then made a run for the kitchen, grabbed some wet wipes and a diaper and that thing that was some sort of baby cream and ran back to his room, sparing one, short, very longing look at the coffee maker.

 

The actual changing of the diaper was a mess in **so** many aspects it wasn't even funny.

"Ew, kid, I repeat, ew, ew ew ew,” he kept a steady stream of complaints that, if nothing else, made him think about something other than what he was doing at the moment. “You are **so** learning to do this yourself as soon as humanly possible,” he informed. Elli gave him a wholly unimpressed look. She was far from content with the whole process as well, or so it seemed, because she fussed and oozed offense from every pore in her little body. If her cries were any indication, she was as anxious to be done with the whole thing as he was.

"Oh, come on, you have no reason to fuss, you do nothing but lay here and I'm doing the dirty work,” he scolded, tossing a mountain of wipes into the nearest waste basket and tried to understand what to do with the cream. A few rather pointed pointers from JARVIS and a whole mess later, he was dabbing cream off everything including the dresser, his arms, his shirt and Elli herself, while staring at the diaper and trying to understand how to put the infernal thing on right.

"Ugh, why is it so hard?? This thing is made so that little kids babysitting their siblings can do it!” he groaned. He got the main idea, he wasn't an idiot, thank you very much. But actually getting it under the baby, folding it so it wasn't too long on one end and too short on the other, and getting the damn stickers to actually **stick**! It wasn't as fucking easy as it seemed!

 

"Ok, I'm so very done with this,” he snapped after a whole of eight minutes fiddling with the thing, and went for the Isolierband. “There! All taped up. Was that so hard to provide some Ducttape with the things?” he huffed, thoroughly ignoring the pointed silence coming from JARVIS's speakers. The AI **had** no eyes, but he could practically **feel** him staring at him reproachfully. Well, he can have the right to criticize when he actually has hands, Tony thought venomously as he maneuvered Elli back into her puzzle of an outfit. Then he realized what he was thinking and had to fight an urge to laugh hysterically. Oh, hell, he was clearly losing it, feeling inferior to a machine. He **needed** that alcohol spiked coffee now, please.

Yeah, well, he was not going to have it, because now that she was all clean and dry, (more or less, but let's not be picky there,) Elli decided to entertain him with another concert of her iron lungs.

"Oh come **on** , kid! What the hell do you **want** from me?” he groaned, taking the child in his arms and starting back on the pacing. It didn't do much. His head, though, **that** was being affected by her cries. “God, kid, you are a military grade weapon, you know that?” he hissed through gritted teeth. And maybe it was true that infants could sense the moods of their caretakers, because Elli turned rigid and her cries climbed an octave, all insult and fury.

 

"Perhaps another feeding, Sir,” JARVIS offered helpfully.

" **Again**?? She **just** ate!”

"A few hours ago, actually, Sir. And her capacity is not as large as yours. She would need more frequent feedings,” the AI provided, adding fuel to Tony's annoyance.

"Oh, alright! Let's get you something to keep you doing something other than wailing, you fog horn,” he muttered and stomped his way back to the kitchen. Finding a safe place to put Elli was quite a challenge. He ended up stomping to the living room and taking one of the couch pillows back with him. The table was big enough to allow Elli to lie in the middle of it with no danger of rolling off before JARVIS could alert him.  
“Jarv, be a dear order some kind of carrier for her. You know, the kind parents carry around like a baby-basket,” he exclaimed as he made his way to the counter. He tried tune out her wails as he took hold of the bottle someone remembered to wash after last use (thank you, Pepper) and tried to remember what he was supposed to do with the can of powder.

"That can't be much different than making coffee,” he muttered, resisting an urge to cover his ears with his hands because- well, he needed his hands, no matter how hard his head was pounding at the moment.

 

"Alright. Boiling water, oddly-shaped-spoon of this- put the top on and shake, right?”

"Sir, I would advise that you-” JARVIS started but before he could finish, Tony started shaking the bottle- and sprayed the whole kitchen with streaks of baby food. “-pinch the teat closed while shaking,” the AI finished calmly, and Tony could swear he sounded **amused**.

 "Fuck! Fucking warn a guy, JARVIS!” he snapped, shaking scalding white droplets off his arms. The AI wisely kept quiet.

"Great. Just great!” he groaned. “And with my rotten luck today, Bruce is going to walk through that door in five minutes and I'm gonna have to explain to him why the kitchen looks like the set of a porn film.” No, really. This day just kept getting better. His head was about to split open, he was sure of it. Whether it would happen before or after Elli's wails drove him crazy remained to be seen. He knew he shouldn't be annoyed at the kid for acting like any baby would under such circumstances. It wasn't her fault she was small and helpless to take care of herself. His mind knew that. But his mind was sort of busy at the moment, sluggish with lack of caffeine and pain and an all-encompassing **need** to have a drink. Have **ten** of them. As many as needed to forget this whole day ever took place.

"Alright, alright! Its ready, stop wailing like a banshee!” he called, perhaps less kindly than he could have, but give a guy a break, will you? He was trying to stay calm, he really was.

 

"Come here, Iron Lungs. Dinner's served,” he muttered, maneuvering Elli into his arms more carefully than he thought he was capable of, and took hold of the bottle again. “There you go, let's have some peace and quiet...” Elli seemed to be at least somewhat pleased to be picked up by him, the volume of her cries decreasing and losing its edge for a moment. The sight of the bottle brought on an abrupt halt of all noise and Tony eyed her incredulously because really? Were babies this age even supposed to **have** focused sight? But the silence, oh, blessed silence, he appreciated **that** , no matter if it was logical or not. Oh, thank god, he thought, and tried not to think exactly which god because apparently there was a choice and some of them were, shall we say, more down to earth than others. He even allowed himself a hint of a smile as he brought the bottle to the child's mouth and Elli took it with greedy haste, talking her first mouthful of dinner-

and spat it back out with a shocked cough and went right on wailing banshee-like, with rage and insult to rival her mother's.

"What- what just- oh FUCK!” he screamed as Elli shrieked and turned **blue** and **freezing** again, right in his bare arms.

 

And he fucking deserved a medal, he really did, because his first thought after 'FUCK' was 'don't drop her don't drop her dontdropherdontdropher' and he clenched the baby with numb yet burning hands as he leaped for the cushion still on the table and placed her on it. Only then did he allow himself to reel back, shaking his hands, then curling into a ball and moaning because it **fucking hurt** and he could see the burns of light frostbite darkening his skin.

"Arrg! JARVIS, water, hot!” he spat, so very glad at that particular moment that he had automated everything in his house and allowed JARVIS access to it all. The water started in the sink and he batted a large bowl into it, allowing water to gather. Then he grit his teeth, took a deep breath, and dunked his hands and forearms in the bowl.

"Arr! **Fuck!** Sonofa- god fucking- nrrrg!” he vented the pain into malformed curses as he allowed the heat to turn his skin pink again. It wasn't bad, not as bad as it could be had the table been further away, but it was going to hurt like a burn. He took deep, calming breaths which were only partially working, and tried not to think how much worse this could have ended.

"What the **fuck**? JARVIS, what the hell happened? Why did- what brought on this outburst?” if this was going to happen without warning- then they had a problem. **He** had a problem, and a big one. He wasn't immune to injury, and he wasn't a damn sky Viking or a **god** , (and you know how bad the situation was because he didn't even think of all the puns that sentence could invite.) he certainly didn't **heal** like one, and he could suffer permanent damage! And over **what**?! A temper tantrum?

 

"Sir, I- believe I know why Miss Elli had such a violent reaction.” This time, the AI's voice held no amusement. “Please check the temperature of the liquid in the bottle against your arm,” he instructed and it was then, only **then** that Tony remembered Pepper had said he was supposed to do that. But this? All this because Elli didn't like the temperature of her dinner? With a scowl he made his way back to the table, accompanied by Elli's still furious wails, and took the bottle with aching fingers. He shook it, squirting a bit of the formula against his hand.

"Ow!” he shook his hand, feeling not unlike when he would spill coffee on his wrist. “As if I don't have enough b-” is voice died mid-sentence as he realized, he **realized** what he had done.

"Burns. Oh **baby** , I am so sorry,” he rushed to her, just stopping himself from reaching to gather her in his arms in time to think better of it. Frosty baby- already frostbitten hands, nope. He felt so helpless, wishing to comfort the obviously hurting baby but unable to. With a groan, he rushed to the living room and grabbed the comforter, then took Elli in his arms again, chill and pain be damned. Her crimson eyes were full of hurt and insult and she squirmed, making the already hard task of holding her nearly impossible. And Tony felt like shit.

 

"I'm so, so sorry baby! I deserved that, I know I did. I'm a terrible parent, I told you I am! I'm not good for you, I don't **do** children! There are good reasons for that! Half the time I burn my own tongue on my dinner! But that's no comfort for you, is it. Oh god, I'm so sorry,” he said desperately, rocking her gently and doing his best not to lose his hold on her as she squirmed. It didn't even take a full day before he damaged her! This must be some kind of a record, it had to be. He was an idiot to think he could somehow do this! He knew nothing about children, whatever made him think he was capable of doing this?!

"Fuck, what was I **thinking**. This is a bad idea, a terrible idea. I can't care for a house plant!” Funny story, that. Not for the plants, of course, and not for Pepper, who had been fond of her house plants and somehow got it in her head to ask him to water them for her when she was on one of her longer business trips and he was- less busy. Yup, **that** went well. Tony suspected she never quite forgave him for those plants. And those were **plants**! Simple; water, put in the light. He couldn't even manage that!

"Oh JARVIS, I can't **do** this!” he moaned, bouncing Elli as he paced, trying to calm her down.

 

"You must, Sir.” The AI's voice was soft, and it made something in Tony's chest clench. “Little Miss Elli has no one but you. As you have said, there is no other option. That is, if you stand by your decision not to hand her back to her mother's kin,” he added gently, and Tony hated that he was right. He was right, and Tony was stuck with this job he had no idea how to do and was generally terrible at. It was not fair, not far that this girl would be made to suffer, because he was her caretaker! Loki was mad, to stick her with him. But then, Loki was mad in general.

With a sigh, he made his way to the fridge got an ice cube from the ice compartment. It burned against his abused fingertips but he paid no attention to the pain as he pressed it gently against the infant's blue lips.  
“I'm so sorry, baby. Know I can't really make it better, but if I could, I would, I swear,” he said remorsefully, hoping to whichever god listens that she wouldn't freeze the tips of his fingers off.

The look Elli gave him was somewhere between hostile and betrayed, a crimson glare of hurt feelings. But the chill against her lips must have been promising enough because she opened her mouth and took as much of the cube as he would let her have, suckling on it as if it was candy. The chill was nothing for her, not in this form apparently, though her mouth was not overly cold around his finger. He held on to the cube, in fear she would choke on it if he let her have it, but she seemed soothed by it. The terrible wailing had ceased entirely and she got that concentrated look again, the one that rose on her face when she was eating. He started pacing again as she did her best to dissolve the cube, batting the bottle into the still water-filled bowl in the sink as he passed by it.

 

"You're right, JARVIS,” he said at last. “I know you're right. But I need- I need to be sure I'm doing the right thing, that I'm not just doing this because everyone say I can't, or because I can't share authority. I've given it serious thought, and still when something like this happens, I can't help but wonder if it's the best choice.” The ice cube was long gone and the wailing didn't resume. Maybe he did do some good after all. It would have felt better, though, if he wasn't the cause of the problem in the first place. He fished the bottle out of the bowl and tested it against his palm, finding it t bee lukewarm at best. Well, better that than scalding.

"There you go, girl. You should have a bit of dinner after all this drama,” he said gently. Elli gave him a flat look and a show of sealed lips, as if saying 'really? You really think you can give this wretched thing to me a second time.' only Loki's child could be this eloquent without saying a thing.

"Come on, baby. I swear to you this won't happen again. You can freeze my hands off if I ever fuck up this badly. Honest,” he murmured beseechingly. Elli seemed skeptic, but she did open her mouth eventually at the repeated offering and very, very slowly, made an experimental suckle motion. That the formula was now almost cold didn't seem to bother her. Her expression thawed into that concentrated bliss as soon as she realized her tongue did not burn and she went right on devouring her dinner with relish. Tony sighed in relief. He didn't know what he would have done if she refused to eat. It was then that JARVIS broke his silence.

 

"Sir,” he said gently. “In view of your concerns, I would like to remind you that you are a certified engineer and a company owner. Every day, you construct and design objects that have the capacity of injuring or killing their users if design or assembly errors occur. When you sign an approval to release a product you have made, you take responsibility over it, over the lives it may take. Yet you never flinch, you never shy from that responsibility. And barring your experiments on your own self, you never make light of it either.” the AI pointed out. Tony made a face.

"So basically, you tell me that if I can be sure of my designs enough to get them out and do my job well, I should man the hell up and trust my own judgment in this?” he drawled.

"I believe, Sir, that you have the capacity to be a good parent. You have never been neglectful with your work. You merely have to believe that you are capable of achieving your goal and make your best effort. If it helps, Sir, I do believe you are doing the right thing,” the AI offered. “But then, you are my creator and I **am** designed to learn from your behavioral patterns.” Oh, that last bit was definitely a bit. If he didn't know better, Tony would have been sure the AI was trying to lighten up the mood. And he was touched, really, even though he would never ever admit it out loud.

"Thanks, Jarv,” he said quietly. In his arms, Elli was finishing her bottle, and finally was turning back to pink and warm. Thank god for small favors.

"Always, Sir,” JARVIS answered. Tony smiled and laid Elli back on her pillow, and was just about to sink down on a chair and realize what he was to do next when a soft ping was heard and the AI spoke again. “If you would, Sir. Your coffee.” Tony rose again with surprise, and **yes** , there it was, freshly brewed in his coffee maker. Oh, thank god yes! Coffee, coffee coffee coffee!!

"Oh, Jarv, I could kiss you, you marvelous artificial mastermind! Thank you, thank you thank you you're a gem!” Tony sang as he outright ran over to the coffee maker and retrieved a mug of steaming caffeinated goodness.

"As I said, Sir, Always,” JARVIS said fondly. Yup, it was definitely fondness in his voice. Tony smiled at the thought as he sat down, sipping slowly and without heed to the way he was scalding his mouth, and watched Elli sucking at her fist calmly.

Yes, this was an impossible situation and he could and probably would screw it up a few times. But in the end, he just might be able to pull this off. For Elli's sake, he swore to do his utmost best.

 

 

 


	8. Prank Calling the Devil. Or Something.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, well, I warned you. Its (still!!) exam season, and I have little time for writing. But due to high demand, and awsome responses like The_Firebird's, who has been very persistant in her demands for more and had inspired me to sit my ass and write (not sure my grades will be thanking you, later, but nevermind.) you now have a new chapter :)  
> Mind you, its not a very long one, nor a very exciting one. But it contains things that needed to happen in order for the story to move on and we're finally past the first day!! (good GOD that took so long.)  
> You know, when I started writing this I thought it would be a shortie. Really, I thught it wuld have only five short chapters. We're 8 chapters deep and we havent even scratched the surface!!  
> It's official. I put to much detail in my writing. Oh, well.  
> I promise Loki will get into frame eventually. Just- patience. A LOT of patience. Sorry.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy! Hopefully, I wont take another month to write the next one....

Banner found Tony like that, still sitting and sipping his coffee, though it was his second cup. Elli was still on her pillow and she was fussy, which was the official reason (if not the only one) his coffee was not spiked with a little something more. At least the painkillers were starting to affect his headache. Thank god for that, really, because he had one more task tonight and he was expecting the headache to get much worse before it could get better. He still had a call to make and compared to it, the earlier two calls seemed like a walk in the park on a nice spring day. With a picnic basket.

 

"Tony? JARVIS told me you wanted to talk to me. You could have called me when you woke up,” Bruce said, just a tad pointedly. Tony flashed him an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, Brucie. Little Miss Iron Lungs here was keeping me busy for a while,” he gestured at said child who was currently kicking her legs about. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but we have to get our stories straight for Shield,” he explained as Bruce made his way closer to the table. The Physicist frowned.

"What about Shie- **Tony**!” Yeah, and **that** was about when Banner realized the state of Tony's hands. The physicist froze, and how he had managed to train himself into having **that** instinctive reaction, Tony would have loved to know. A second later, though, he was at Tony's chair, taking hold of his hand and examining the burns worriedly.

"Tony, what the hell did you **do**??” he asked and Tony could actually hear concern in his voice.

"Don't get your panties in a twist, buddy, I'm fine,” he assured the scientist, pulling his hands against his chest self-consciously. Ow. Yeah, still hurts. “Had worse with circuitry burns, actually. I'm positive temperature sensitivity will be fully restored by the time it's healed,” he said, just a tad defensively. It wasn't **Elli's** fault he was a complete moron, after all. Bruce, however, didn't seem the least bit comforted by his words.

"Don't be an idiot, Tony, these are serious. You don't play around with burns. Where's the Med kit?” he asked, his voice going all calm and clinical which told Tony it was no use arguing. This was Healer Bruce speaking.

"In the kitchen cabinet under the sink, Dr Banner,” JARVIS provided helpfully.

"Mother hen,” Tony hissed at one of the AI's cameras while Banner went rummaging under said sink. He never even asked about the white fluid sprayed all over the floor and in the process of being cleaned by the maintenance bots, for which Tony was silently grateful. He tried not to wince as the physicist sat down across from him and asked silently for his hands.

"Ow. Ow, Brucie, be gentle with me, I'm tender,” he said, smiling innocently when Bruce fixed him with a very calm, very unamused stare. So, not in the mood for innuendos. Noted.

"C'mon, don't be a dry stick. I need to get my mind off your, err- poking. Ow. I would like to state for the record: Ow.” Banner sighed, his fingers surprisingly gentle as he went about his work, all things considered.

"Mind telling me how that happened, Tony?” he asked, and his tone was that kind of tone that said 'you'd better tell me or you wouldn't like what I'll have to say next.' which considering it was Banner, was a fair warning.

"Fine, fine. It really wasn't her fault, though, I'd like you to remember that,” Tony relented reluctantly.

" **Elli** did this?” Bruce asked sharply.

"Well who else? Come on, Bruce. I'm not such an idiot as to stick my hand into liquid nitrogen out of my own free will,” Tony retorted. Banner's look, however, clearly spoke his opinion about the truth in **that** statement. Which was insulting, really. Aaand fair, if he was completely honest with himself. Ugh, self-reflecting was so overrated.

"Look, I was an idiot. Hard as it is for me to admit, I AM ignorant about something. Kids being that thing. I made some mistake, and I sort of, might have, err- given-Elli-a-scalding-hot-bottle,” he said hurriedly, as if Bruce would somehow **not** make a big deal out of it if it passed his ears fast enough.

"You **what**?” Bruce went stock still again and Tony only barely quelled the urge to pull his hands out of the physicist's hold and step out of arm's reach.

"Brucie,” he said very quickly and very quietly. “Now don't go green around the gills on me, please there's only so much excitement I can bear in one day. I know it was stupid and dangerous and damn irresponsible of me-”

"She could choke, Tony!” Bruce cut sharply into his words, “Or inhale a lungful of scalding hot liquid! Do you have **any idea** what that would do to a baby?!”

" **I know**!” Tony snapped, and this time he did pull his hands out of Banner's reach, though it was out of pure annoyance, not fear for his safety. He just barely stopped himself from raking his fingers through his hair. “Believe me, I know, and there is nothing you can say to me I haven't already told myself. I don't **know** enough, I didn't pay attention and the kid payed the price. I know I fucked up, and I may be a self-centered jerk but I'm not so hopeless that I don't realize I don't have the luxury of ignorance anymore,” he had to stop to take a breath then, suddenly breathless as if he'd been running but Bruce didn't interject, just drew Elli closer so that he could look into her mouth for damage, for which Tony was oddly grateful.

“I like to call myself a genius, and you know mostly, it's not just idle boasting. And I don't usually do the- people thing, but despite what most think I **am** self-aware. I **know** I'm an atrocious choice as a caretaker. But Elli has no choice, and I have no choice. I'm her only chance at a Haven and if I must do it, I will damn well do my utmost best to do it **right**. No slacking off, no excuses. If I can take responsibility for my work, I can do this with her too, as Jarv so graciously reminded me, and fuck me if I be the reason this kid has a fucked up life!” he finished, almost shouting by now, his chest heaving as if he had just finished pleading innocence at a murder trial. Aaaand Bruce was staring. Great. Now even the green guy must think he's a lunatic.

"You're... different,” the physicist said quietly, which was so unexpected Tony actually stayed quiet for a moment. “You sound... very serious about this.”

"Of course I'm serious! She's not a pet or a robot! I can't just give her away to a new home or rebuild her if I screw up!” Tony said incredulously.

"I'm glad you realize that,” Bruce said with a sigh. “To be frank, when you convinced me to help you, I wasn't sure you fully realize this. I wasn't sure you can be serious about this. Or anything for that matter.”

"I can be serious,” Tony protested.

"You never are,” Bruce retorted, and now that just wasn't fair.

"I rarely find reason to be, and is it 'let's dissect Tony's character' day and I wasn't notified? Cut me some slack, here, I'm adjusting,” he complained.

"I didn't mean it as a criticism, Tony. I am pleasantly surprised and relieved by the way you are taking this, is all. Your convictions are in the right place. With a bit of practice and research, you'll be able to master this, if you truly want to.”

"Yeah, if I don't kill the kid first,” Tony said with a wince. Bruce huffed.

"Well you obviously did **something** right. Her mouth seems fine to me, no scalded tissue at all. She doesn't seem to be in pain either.” he offered.

"Um, I did give her an ice cube to suck on. I figured it can't hurt, since she's gone Ice Queen on me. I suppose either her inner mojo dealt with the damage or it used the ice to do it or- something. She wasn't thrilled with me afterward but she did eat, so...” Tony shrugged and let his voice fade, trying to hide the way he sagged in relief at Bruce's words. The Physicist nodded thoughtfully.

"It's not far-fetched in theory. Her kin are obviously adept at using their frozen surroundings, or they wouldn't have survived. I am far from an expert on magic but it seems logical they would be able to utilize the ice somehow,” he said, rubbing his brow with stiff fingers and Tony realized he looked tired. More tired than usual, that is. Damn, how guilt had a way of springing out on ya.

"You look kinda spent, buddy. You want some coffee?” he asked awkwardly. Bruce sighed.

"No, thanks Tony. You won't happen to have some tea, would you?” he answered.

"Eh, chances are slim. You know I don't drink leaf water,” Tony answered apologetically and stopped just shy of raking his fingers through his hair again. Bruce hummed and grabbed the errant hand once more, resuming his (over-doting, in Tony's opinion) treatment of the burns. And Tony let him, because he knew Bruce too well to argue and because even though he would never admit it, some part of him warmed at the domestic feeling of it, of someone caring. And hello mister clingy again... damn, his brain must be going haywire from the day's emotional roller-coaster to make him this sentimental. Which reminded him...

 

"So, as I was saying before you went all witch doctor on me, I'm sorry to keep you from your rest but we need to decide on a front story for Shield,” he reminded, watching Bruce's face went through the all too familiar loss of expression when Shield was mentioned.

"And as I started to say, 'what about Shield?'” he returned. Tony retracted his now bandaged hand, scowling at the loss of dexterity as he flexed his fingers.

"Well, as Pepper so graciously reminded me, Shield has a nasty habit of nosing about where they don't belong. I still must inform them of Loki's escape from magic Alcatraz and I would like to leave the part where he dumped his spawn in my living-room on a strictly need to know basis. And they don't need to know,” he explained. “But, of course, things can't be that easy because I'm me and Tony Stark can't have it easy, heavens forbid, so I need to come up with a really good excuse as to why I can't I get my metal, shiny behind out of the tower for the next few weeks and why everyone else can't come see me,” burns be damned, he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbed, trying to shake off the fatigue he felt just thinking about the task ahead.

"I was hoping you'd help me out with my little cover story. On the scale of being a credible witness for Shield, you may turn green and mean but you still rank way above me,” he pointed out with a sigh. Bruce gave him a level, long suffering look.

"You want me to lie,” he said drily.

"To Shield! Hey, none of us will shed tears about lying to them. Old one-eye himself lies to us on a daily basis! He may think it's a spy must or something, but he sure doesn't have the moral high-ground to chew us up over it,” Tony protested.

"Tony, I'll end up in a cell because of you,” Bruce groaned, but waved his hand before Tony could interject. “Alright fine. What's the yarn you want me to spin?” he asked tiredly.

 

And Tony told him. They went back and forth, perfecting the details. Bruce didn't like Tony's plan of a superhero hiatus but he too could see no other way.

“And it's not as if I can't pull a last minute rescue if everything goes south and the fucks start flying, you know,” Tony said with a shrug. He really didn't know **how** that will be possible, but if shit hit the fan... well there were a few people on his list of 'uninvolved' that would have to get involved. He sincerely hoped it would never come to that. Bruce hummed worriedly at that, seeming wholly dissatisfied still.

“Maybe you could just mechanize a suit to be remote controlled in case of emergency,” he offered.

 

Tony just stared at him for a moment, mouth agape.

Seriously. **Seriously**. **Where** was his brain today? And why the **fuck** did he not even think about it himself?

Oh, he had entertained the notion before, it's not that it completely eluded him. But he had ruled it out as a dangerous back door that wasn't completely necessary and, well, he **loved** flying. Sitting back and remote controlling it like some game just sat wrong with him. He had laid the idea aside and never thought of it again. But now... now it **was** necessary, in fact it was the perfect way to hide his ploy!

"Brucie,” he sang “If you were my type I would seriously kiss you right now.”

"As if I need more complications in my life,” Bruce rolled his eyes. Tony chuckled.

"Seriously though. It's perfect. I'll start working on it tomorrow.”

They added a few suggestions and polished the whole thing until Tony was sure Fury would be able to use the fucking tale as a shaving mirror. Elli, thank god, was heavenly quiet throughout the process, sucking on her fist and turning gradually pink again. When they finally memorized every tiny detail, she was fast asleep.

"Alright, just let me lie through my teeth and swear to everything I say, then, right?” Tony concluded cheerfully, drawing a, rather childish, if he gave it a good look, satisfaction out of scheming behind Shield's back. God knows they needed someone to keep them on their toes. The whole hydra incident was not even remotely funny and they had been caught unaware. He was still not sure it was entirely over.

"Just don't swear me into anything the Other Guy will have to take personally,” Bruce grunted.

"Sure, Sure. No marriages, no avocado commercials, no 'green giant' vibrator line, got it.” Tony said with a grin.

"Why me,” the physicist groaned from between his arms.

"Now now, Brucie. You've had a long day. Go home, unpack your suitcase, have a nice session of meditation or what you do in your spare time. I'll talk to Fury and we'll meet again tomorrow. Just don't forget your bio-hazard suit.” Tony reminded. Bruce made a face.

"Working in that would be just great for my disposition.”

"Oh, it's just until you get to the lab. I'll lock us in and you'll be able to get rid of that. After all, I'm not **really** going to release nanites into the air,” Tony exclaimed.

 

He walked Bruce to the door and bid him good night, not before being reminded to 'mind his hands if he really wanted the burns to heal right'. When the elevator closed at last, he stood in the relative darkness and ton a deep, slow breath. Everything was still and quiet, suddenly. Like the complete quiet after a calamity had struck. It was rather peaceful, even. If he closed his eyes he could just pretend that everything was just like yesterday. That he was about to go and sit on the sofa, pour himself some scotch and just relax in the dark, the shine of his starkpad the only thing to disturb the blackness if he chose to review some of his projects, until he fell asleep.

 

But there was no use pretending. He was past denial. With another, fortifying breath, he turned away from the elevator. But he didn't return to the kitchen. Elli was asleep and he didn't want to wake her, especially not if he was going to make that call.

"Jarv, change lock-down protocol. Initiate 'Airtight' protocol. Lab level and penthouse, plus the right elevator. Re-rout the left elevator to ignore calls and requests to said floors and seal the shaft above cleared levels. Revoke all clearances to doors and elevators but Pepper's, Bruce's and mine. Stated reason will be Bio-hazard lock-down. Emergency passwords are to be granted only if my life is in danger or Elli is in danger and I cannot be reached. Got that?” he instructed as he made his way through the living-room and into one of the spare rooms.

"Understood. Right away Sir,” the AI responded and Tony could hear air-locks sealing tight all about, the elevators hum as they changed direction and doors lock. Outside on the balcony, he knew the clear sealed dome would rise from its concealed place to seal the terrace from the outside world. The dry flutter of newly awakened air filtering mechanisms sounded through the house, then died into a near silent hum most would miss. He had tested the mechanisms and protocols back after he installed them, but this was the first time they were fully operational and he was suddenly very glad he would be able to test them in a real scenario but without the actual danger of bio-hazard leakage.

"Protocol complete, Sir. The system is fully operational. I detect no errors. There are no leaks,” JARVIS reported. Tony grinned.

"Of course not, Jarv. Give me some credit. Now, be a dear and activate the noise dampeners in this room. And watch Elli as I make this phone call to hell, will you? Hint at me somehow if she needs me,” he asked.

"Very well, Sir.” He knew the dampeners started working when the room grew even quieter. “Calling Director Fury's secured line- now,” the AI cautioned. Tony made himself comfortable as the TV screen in the room flared to life.

 

If there was any time Director Fury didn't look as if he was ready to chew nails and spit fire, Tony had yet to see it. Part of it, he guessed, was a distinct reaction to his presence. In Fury's opinion, so he had gathered, Tony Stark belonged in a cell or, better, a re-education camp. In Tony's opinion, the director needed to pull the stick out of his ass. Their clashing personalities never ceased to cause conflicts between them. Tony thought it was hilarious, Fury thought it was appalling. It didn't help that rattling old one-eye's chain was so delightfully **fun**. Fury wanted him to be his father and was constantly infuriated that he was not. And Tony had a long history of antagonizing and spiting those who held that particular opinion.

So, it really was no surprise that the one eyed spy master regarded him with a narrowed stare that said 'another problem just landed on my desk'.

"Stark. To what do I owe the distinct pleasure of your attention tonight?” his voice dripped sarcasm like venom.

"Oh, you know, just calling to say hi, check on your health, share some gossip...” Tony said flippantly, waving his hand as he let his voice fade.

"Is that so,” he was sure that if he listened well, he would be able to hear Fury's teeth grinding. “Then care to tell me **why have you been avoiding my calls** all afternoon?” Calls? Oh, he needed to have a nice long talk with JARVIS.

"Sorry, my secretary is on vacation,” Tony answered with a shrug and a grin.

"You programmed your secretary yourself, Stark. Now cut the crap and tell me why do you really call, because I don't have the time to exchange pleasantries with you,” Fury growled. “What have you been up to? Our scanners have detected an energy signature very similar of Bifrost activity on top of your tower. I was **this close** to sending an assault team to scale your building, Stark, and I'm still toying with the idea, so you'd better tell me what the fuck did you **do.** ” there was an unveiled threat in the director's voice Tony didn't like one bit. But he did realize what Fury was all puffed up about. After New York, any portal energy would set Shield on edge. Well, stalling over. He sobered, leaning forward in his seat.

"Hold your horses, Fury. This is what I'm calling about anyway.” He took a deep breath and watched some tension in Fury's brow fade, just a bit. Huh, he could really set the man on edge, apparently. “Thor was here,” he said slowly.

 

"Thor?” Fury leaned forward, suddenly animated. “So the Bifrost's operational again? Our scientists sent no word-”

"No. Rainbow Bridge's still down. The- Allfather apparently cashed in some favors to send him across the realms,” Tony interjected. At that, Fury's eye narrowed again, and Tony had to admit, one had to be blind not to see the oddness in that statement.

"He didn't happen to say **why** that is, did he? **Where** exactly is Thor right now?” the Director asked pointedly.

"He didn't stick around, but he did explain. Which is why I called.” Tony felt his mouth go dry and cursed himself inwardly for not placing some water beside him. Or scotch. Yes, he could use some liquid courage right now, especially since he was going to throw a whole truckload of shit at a very big fan. “Fury, Thor had stopped by to let us know that Loki had escaped.” he was very proud of himself for not wincing as he spoke the words. Now all he could do was lean back and watch mount' Fury erupt.

 

" **WHAT?!** ” yeah, people were going to hear **that** miles away. He watched as Fury shot to his feet, his hands going for several phones at once while he growled. “You deranged megalomaniac **moron**! He visited you at **noon** and you took **this** long to contact me! Are you fucking **insane**?! Stark, when I finish with you, the only tools you'll be holding are plastic spoons in a padded **cell**!” he roared, already half way though punching numbers on his phone and picking up the secured line at his elbow.

 

"Jarv, if you please,” Tony said with a sigh. The AI didn't answer verbally but one of his cameras whirred in assent and Tony knew the lines would not connect Fury anywhere anymore, as long as he didn't want them to.

" **FURY**.” he called out, loud enough to catch even the fuming director's attention. “Put the phones down. I haven't finished.”

"Oh, you **are** finished, Stark. You are more than finished-”

"Would you **shut up** for **one second** and let me explain before you dive head first from the edge of a cliff? Sheesh, Fury, give me an ounce of credit, I'm not witless!” Tony spat. Fury seemed ready to bite something, preferably Tony's head off, but to his credit he held back and sat back down.

"You have one minute,” he spat.

"Well, aren't we generous today. I'm trying to tell you what he told me, so try to listen before you go ballistic, alright?” Tony said drily. “So, here's the deal. Thor landed on my balcony at noon, all anxious and very relieved that I'm well. He proceeded to tell me Loki had escaped. Well, being the one who had to learn to fly while free-falling towards a very hard pavement last time Tall and Twisted came for a visit, I freaked out. But Thor explained he thinks the last place Loki would go would be Earth. “Fury seemed thoroughly unconvinced and Tony didn't blame him.

“Oh? And what made him so sure?” he asked.

“Well, you see- the Head Viking in the sky had it in his head to reform his son by re-education. You know 'humility is a virtue' and all that,” Tony rolled his eyes while Fury seemed to be in favor of the idea. Figures. “And he decided to go all the way, you know, why stop there. So he declared that Loki was a slave and gave him to one of his ambassadors, or something, to be taken to a land full of mages that would be able to control him and his magic.” Well, Tony might admit, some tiny part of him thought the Director would at least seem mildly disgusted at the notion of such punishment. But nope, the Director seemed completely at peace with the idea.

 

"Only,” he carried on “Turns out the confidant had a whole other idea about what he's allowed to do. He did nasty things, Fury. Really nasty things.” He didn't think he could elaborate, right now. “And- surprise, apparently, Loki can become pregnant. Apparently they brought him back home and put him in a cell until he gave birth but he outsmarted them, gave them the slip and took his spawn with him. And you can't even begin to guess how weirded out I am just talking about it,” Tony said with a shudder. Fury, however, just seemed angry.

"Damn irresponsible Vikings. They assured us they could handle him!” he snarled.

"Eh, hello, rape? Abuse? Doesn't **anything** bother you, Fury?” Tony, for one 'was disgusted. Fury narrowed his eyes again.

"Let us make something clear, Stark. I care that things get **done**. That **justice** gets done. **How** they do things, their morals and rules don't matter to me. They sure didn't matter to him when he killed hundreds of people of our own. They can do whatever they want with him, as long as they keep him **contained**. Which they thoroughly failed. If we do find him, I am not sure the World Council would be inclined to give them another chance,” he said frostily. Tony shocked back a shudder and stifled his discomfort at the exchange.

"Well, Thor was thoroughly apologetic. He swore to me that he would protect this realm from his brother and informed me that his father has sent him along with others to chase Loki across the realms until they catch him. But you see, he has no point of coming here. He has no friends here and too many enemies that would be all too eager to hand his ass back to Asgard, or- well- land him in **some** kind of cell. He'll run fast and run far,” Tony offered with a shrug. “So I agree we need to be on alert, but there is no need for panic.”

"I never **panic** , Stark. Only react,” Fury drawled. “And why, pray tell, did you wait this long to tell me all about this?”

"Well, you see, the problem was, I was kinda in the middle of something when Thor dropped for a visit. I've been experimenting with a sterilized, or- docilized? Is that a word? Anyway, a strain of Extermis I designed to be more passive and less hostile in order to study it and- you know- maybe make a breakthrough, for Pepper. Bruce was helping me, and we were testing it under quarantine in the lab. After I heard the news, I went down to close it all up and put everything safely away before I called you, and- I sorta miscalculated,” he raked his fingers through his hair, and ugh! Remembered too late that it wasn't such a good idea. Fury's eyes immediately zeroed on the bandages and his expression darkened even further, if that was even possible.

"Stark **what did you do**.”

"Eh- as I said, I miscalculated, and the whole thing blew up in my face,” he said with a wince. “The container, that is. My Bio-hazard suit didn't quite make it, and I ended up with a face-full of the stuff, not to mention it went in the cuts. Bruce wasn't close enough to be hit. He patched me up.”

"Of all the reckless things- you need to be under medical observation! You might combust, you maniac!” Fury seemed beside himself with anger. Tony didn't delude himself that it was out of care for his well-being.

"Oh Fury, you care!” he called dramatically, his voice dripping sarcasm. “Relax, I won't combust. I made sure of that, at least. They are not supposed to do anything, these nanites. They are not supposed to be active. But I can't take the chance. I need to find a way to turn them off. Oh, and Fury-” he schooled his expression. “This strain is airborne.”

"The **FUCK** Stark!” Fury's fist hit his desk with a crack. “You won't let us have so much as a look at it but you go and fucking **weaponize** the damn thing?! Are you completely **insane**? I ought to-”

"Not weaponize!” Tony shouted over his words. “I'd sooner go back into selling missiles to terrorists than do that, Fury, and you know it. I needed to weaken the links between the nanites. Unfortunately it also made them able to be expelled from the solution and float around, hence the sterilization, creating the docile strain, the precautions and sealed container. But I made an error and now it's all on me. I've sealed my apartment and lab level from the rest of the building before it could spread. The elevator shafts as well. I have sterilization barriers installed at every portal and every floor. It's contained. I only need time to clean it and make sure it's gone, then flush t out of my system. So... it means I won't be able to go on missions for a while,” he admitted with a sigh. He wasn't sure he wasn't imagining it, but Furry seemed- reassured. Huh. Maybe the director did have some faith in him after all.

"Stark, you are foolish and rash, reckless to a fault and every breath you take adds trouble to the pile on my desk,” Fury grumbled. “Fine. I will inform the team and we will make do as you solve your little problem. As long as it's contained. One breach though-”

"I designed this system. There will be no breaches,” Tony insisted and for once, Fury didn't seem eager to argue. Tony guessed it was because he had far more pressing problems on his hands.

"You work on that. I will make the necessary arrangements. If the bastard comes back, we will be ready. And this time, the boot will be much bigger. Don't play around, Stark. You're not on vacation.” with that, Fury ended the call.

 

"Phew! So glad that's over! And lookie that, I've survived,” Tony groaned and leaned back, resting his head on the back of the sofa and closing his eyes for a moment of much needed relaxation. He realized how dangerous that was when he lost a whole minute and realized he'd been nodding off. He couldn't sleep yet.

"Jarv? How's princess Blue?” he asked tiredly, rising to his feet. Damn, his joints had no business hurting like that. He wasn't that old yet. ...was he?

"Little Miss Elli is still fast asleep, Sir. It would be best if you transfer her to the bedroom, though. The bed and carrier you ordered were delivered to the building a few hours ago and I took the liberty to have them transferred to the right elevator. They will need to be assembled but for now, the master bed should suffice,” JARVIS reported.

"Oh **bed** , bedbedbedbed. Yes, I'm ready for bed now. This has been a long and peculiar day. I seriously think that if anything more happens today I'm gonna have a heart attack.“ He stretched with a groan, then made his way back to the kitchen, where Elli was making small suckling motions in her sleep, which he admitted was utterly **adorable**.

"Well, I bought us some time, Kid. Big meanie One-eye will leave us alone for a few days, and we'll figure things out. But not today,” he yawned and took her, pillow and all, into his arms as gently as possible. He was amazed that she didn't stir. “I think we'll both be wiser in the morning. Off to bed with us,” he murmured as he carried her to his bedroom. Ever so slowly, as to avoid waking her up, he laid her in her pillow fortress, then kicked off his shoes and curled up on the other side of the barrier.

"Jarv, Hold the fort for a while, would you?” he murmured.

"Of course,” came the AI's soft response. Sleep tugged at him heavily and just before he let it pull him under, the soft voice sounded again in the room, raspier, kinder and almost painfully familiar. “Good night Sir. Rest well.”


	9. Alien Baby 101, The Evening Course.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know, I'm awful, sorry!!  
> I had to finish and file my finishing project for my degree. I got awsome reviews for that, so working my ass off payed off! But I neglected you and this story, and I apologize. Things are still hectic, I have a test in two days! But I had to get a chapter out to you before that.  
> So, I'm sorry if the quality is not what you came to expect from me, I do hope I managed to stay IC, yeah, I KNOS you all want to see Loki return but as I said, things still need to happen and I'm writing as fast as I can.  
> Here's to late night parenting! XD

Well, turned out sleep was too much to hope for.

He was woken about three hours later by Elli's insistent wails. He was so startled he actually rolled to the wrong side and fell out of bed. Back aching, he climbed to his feet with a sigh.

"Ugh. **Really** , girl, what do you have against sleep? Sleep is good!” he groaned. “Let me guess, you're hungry again. Jarv, who have I killed in a past life to deserve this karma? No, you know what, don't answer that,” he whined as he picked the fussy Elli up and held her to his chest. Glistening green eyes locked onto his face and the crying stopped, though the fussing didn't. At least she didn't go blue this time.

"Hey, baby girl. No reason to fuss, I got you. Everything's fine, we're cool, see?” he crooned as he rocked her lightly. “Ok, let's do this. Yeah, and of course, you need a diaper change,” he sighed.

 

He ended up using the dresser as a changing station again, bleary eyed and yawning. His bandaged fingers posed a problem he solved by pulling two nylon bags over his hands. It did nothing to improve his already damaged dexterity, and he soon found out why Isolierband was NOT a good bonding material for a diaper.

"Goddammit! This is ridiculous,” he groaned at the stubborn tape that, true to its purpose, refused to part or break at his tugs. He ended up using toenail scissors to cut through the tape, and then he had to go through the whole process of cleaning and re-diapering which he had no fond memories from, only with near to useless hands. Which of course did no favors for his disposition or Elli's, who was fussing again in protest of being held in an awkward position for so long. It also meant the mess was even bigger this time. When it finally came to putting on a fresh diaper, Tony was breathing hard and the mere thought of battling with the thing made him want to bang his head against the wall.

"Ugh. Where's the Isolierband....” he groaned, looking around between piles of wet wipes, bottles of lotion and other things he couldn't even name.

"Sir, might I suggest a slightly- different approach?” JARVIS asked pleasantly.

"Jarv, at this point I'm even willing to try prayer if you sell it well enough,” Tony near to whined. He was not **awake** enough to deal with this, goddammit.

"I was going to suggest recruiting the aid of YouTube tutorials, actually, Sir. But if you feel the need to pray, I would not be the one to stop you from your new-found devotion,” the AI said drily. The bastard. He knew well enough what Tony's views about faith in general were. Actually, there was one god in particular Tony disliked especially, just about now. But regardless, JARVIS had a point.

"Ha ha. I am delighted by your humor. Ok, bring it on. Let's see what the holy spirits of YouTube have to say to us.”

 

As it turned out, quite a lot. There were surprisingly numerous well documented and easy to follow tutorials about diaper changing online and after watching a few, Tony actually realized some of his mistakes.

"Oook. I think I'm ready to try. Let's just change these first,” he put on fresh bags over his hands. “There. I'm sure the lotion was part of the problem last time, and now that I know how it's actually used, I may not mess up the whole room next time,” he muttered as he slid the diaper under Elli who was, unsurprisingly, at the end of her patience, and followed the instructor's motions.

"Play. No, stop- ok, rewind about 30 seconds. Play. A-huh, ok, pause- play.” Part of him felt really ridiculous. But it worked! At last, he stepped back and looked at his handiwork.

"Well will you look at that. It's actually on, and it actually holds. Ha! In your face, universe!” he grinned triumphantly, pointing at the diaper.

Elli, however, was totally unimpressed. She gave Tony one look and started wailing again, kicking her legs in clear irritation.

"Ok ok! Sheesh, let a guy enjoy a moment of victory, will you? That wasn't easy, you know!” he pointed out as he removed the bags and pulled new leggings up her legs. “Up you go, princess,” he grunted and picked her up into his hold again. Huh. It was odd, how one moment she would squirm and fuss, and as soon as he picked her up and held her, she would go still and just stare up at him with those surprisingly focused eyes. She still seemed to love it when he talked. Maybe it was the vibration of his chest that she found pleasant. He didn't know, didn't care, just as long as he worked.

"Look at you, Kid, not even blue. You're being extra nice for me right now, aren't you? Yeah, you are. Yes you are.” he said, definitely not cooing. At all. Banish the thought. “Let's get you some food and get back to bed. It's Tony sleepy time and he really wants to get back to it,” he kept on the stream of his one sided conversation as he made his way to the kitchen and commandeered another pillow from the living-room to put her on.

 

"Ok, since YouTube has been surprisingly helpful- Net me, Jarv!” he ordered. Immediately, a display screen flared to life, as if the AI had been anticipating his demand, or maybe waiting to force the help on him if he fumbled. Either way, he apparently knew where to look. With a tutorial's help he poured hot water into the bottle and mixed it with powder to create the formula. He didn't have to remind himself to check the temperature. Here's one mistake he would only do once. And maybe he was overcautious now, but he decided to set it to cool a little in a bowl of water like the clip instructed.

"Huh, I actually did something right the first time, though unintentionally,” he mused. He dozed against the kitchen isle as he waited, but shook himself awake before he could really fall asleep. Forcing himself to stay awake while Elli ate was a bit more challenging and he resorted to standing up and pacing again, watching her little mouth move as she went about wolfing down her dinner.

"You have the appetite of a truck driver, Kid. It was just three hours. You act as if I starve you,” he chided her gently. Elli, of course, ignored his criticism entirely and focused on her food. He yawned as she drew stubbornly at the last drops in the bottle, half expecting to hear his jaw crack with the strain. He was so tired it was not even remotely funny. With a sigh, he tossed the bottle into the sink, because come on, it was too late at night to do the cleanup and the thing wouldn't run away, now, would it.

"Ok kiddo, it's been fun, but it's time to go back to bed,” he exclaimed as he made his way back to his room. “Belly full, diaper dry, yup, you're all set. G'night, kid. See ya in the morning,” he said softly as he placed Elli back in her pillow nest. With a groan, he threw himself down beside it, kicked and clawed the blanket up over himself and closed his eyes, trying his best to pretend he was never awake at all. “Sleep, yeah. Here I come....”

But Elli had other ideas.

He had just the time to sink blissfully into the soft, warm and pleasant floating of the moment before unconsciousness took hold, when Elli's wailing resumed, pounding viciously inside his head. “Oh for **fuck's sake** , what now?” he growled, flinging his pillow across the room with sheer frustration. Elli's wails took on a startled edge and for a moment he felt bad, though the feeling was slightly tempered by his frustration.

"It's fucking-late-o'clock at night, Elli! I've been up for three days straight! I- at least I think it was three days, I tend to lose count- but that's beside the point! **Why** do you refuse to do the normal, sane thing and go to **sleep**?” he whined as he sat up and picked her up again. This time, though, the touch of his hands didn't halt her cries. She squirmed in his hold, glistening green eyes watching him with an expression of deep insult as she complained. Yup, those were clearly complaints and he might blame the hour and the preceding three days of sleepless tinkering, but he could swear that if he listened closely enough he would actually make out actual swear words in her wails. Yeah, he was definitely up for too fucking long.

"Ugh, come on Kid, do me a solid here. Close those shiny emeralds of yours and lets both get some rest. Sleep does wonders for my overall sanity and you need a sane daddy-protector-whatever, right?” he moaned. It had little effect on Elli, who was still squirming like a little eel in his arms.

"Hey, whoa, Kid, still a novice at holding babies, here, remember?” he reminded. But this was going nowhere fast, just like the prospect of getting any sleep anytime soon. With a rather miserable sigh, he rose to his feet and started pacing.

 

15 minutes later- he was still pacing, and trying his damn best to avoid dropping the squirming child in his arms. Elli was not showing any inclination to subside, or any signs she was going to fall asleep any time soon, for that matter. And Tony- well, he had **no** idea what he was doing. This was uncharted territory.

"What? Elli, what? You're not hungry. I just fed you. Your diaper is just fine, I checked! Help me out here, Kid, 'cause I don't speak fog-horn Morse code!” he pleaded. “Jarv, buddy, please, tell me what I'm doing wrong because I can't believe I'm saying that but I **need** sleep.” Admitting that was embarrassing enough, especially since he would usually boast that 'sleep is for the weak' and 'overrated' and so on. The universe must have a dark sense of humor.

"I'm afraid the cause is inconclusive, Sir. It might be one or more of several reasons, some more plausible than others but all are possible,” the AI provided apologetically. Tony groaned. He had, wisely enough, wrapped himself in the sleeved comforter and a warm shirt after five minutes of Elli's incessant wailing. His hands were already wrapped up with bandages so he guessed it's the best he can do. And good thing too, because all signs were showing that this was only going to go south from here.

"Ok, run the more probable ones by me and we'll strike them out as we go, because this can't go on for much longer. Either I'll go completely eating-the-carpets nuts, or miss Iron Lungs here will damage her throat. Or pop a blood vessel or something, who fucking knows,” he instructed tiredly.

"well Sir, the possible causes in order of probability are gastric gas, a sudden illness, inadequate body or surrounding temperature, inadequate bedding, several kinds of psychological stress, an allergic reaction, a manifestation of an undetected birth defect-”

"Ok ok, you can stop here because you are starting to freak me out, thank you,” Tony cut into the AI's words. “Jeeze, Jarv, where did that all come from? I mean, fuck!” he panted. This list of catastrophes was **not** helping the state of his nerves.

“The internet, of course, Sir. Sadly, I am not programmed to be a source of knowledge about child rearing, extraterrestrial or otherwise,” JARVIS answered smartly. Tony made a face.

“Ha ha. So I'm not a fucking prophet, to have thought about that in advance. Who knew.” Actually, that gave him an idea, he filed it for later observation. “And don't you know you're not supposed to check out health issues on the net? A sure way of getting a heart attack, that. Alright, ok, let's go over these logically, shall we?” he said, changing his hold on Elli when she arched her back and kicked her little legs. How he managed to communicate at all with her wails echoing off the walls was a mystery. Perhaps he was getting used to it. He wasn't sure that was a **good** sign, necessarily.

 

"Birth defect- not likely. I mean, I wouldn't know, since she has some organs I don't even recognize, but nothing caught my eye and she's been screaming for quite some time now, so she doesn't lack anything vital at the moment... Arrg! This is frustrating,” Tony groaned, making a short lived attempt to rub at his eyes before he thought better of it. “Sudden illness- well, again, I wouldn't know, and I sure hope that's not the case 'cause if it is, we're screwed so hard the springs are squeaking. An allergic reaction would have caused some physical reaction other than crying, I **think**. I really hope it's not psychological, 'cause I don't do shrinks and I'm really trying to make this as stress free for her as I possibly can, so.... what are we left with? Did you say gas?” he made a face “Why would she have gas? The kid eats white goo!” Ugh, he was too tired for this. Way too tired.

"It appears that even a diet consisting solely of maternal milk results in gas, Sir. Articles on the subject of infant care suggest that some amount of air is ingested in the act of suckling, resulting in discomfort. What more, some infants exhibit a sensitivity to some synthetic formulas or even their own mother's milk which results in discomfort. I cannot determine which is the case without use of the medical scanners and even with their aid, I am doubtful I would be able to determine a conclusive reason,” JARVIS explained.

"Well, then what do I **do**?” Tony groaned, turning as he reached the wall for what seemed like the thousandth time and starting his pacing again to the other side of the room. He **needed** to sort this out, or he needed a big glass of scotch. One or the other.

"Literature of the subject recommends that an infant should be held upright after each meal and the excess air should be encouraged out of its system with the aid of gentle patting,” the AI offered helpfully.

"You mean, I need to burp her?” huh, well, that was easy enough to test, wasn't it? “Ok, kid, let's do this, nice and easy, remember I have bandages on my hands and don't squirm out of my hold, 'kay?” he murmured as he changed his hold on her carefully, lifting her to his shoulder. “Like this?” he asked, just to make sure.

"It would seem so, Sir,” JARVIS confirmed.

"Ok, here goes...” he freed one hand with effort and started patting Elli's back gently. Nothing seemed to happen. “Am I too gentle? How much force to I need to use here, exactly? It's hard to tell head on, you know, kids being fragile and all...” His mouth was in full automatic mode, as it usually was when he was under pressure, and he really didn't care, seeing as his only audience was Elli and JARVIS. “I really don't think it's doing anything. Am I missing something? I-” he cut his blabber when suddenly, Elli went stock still and rigid. “Whoa, what-” and then the infant made a small hiccupping sound- and a stream of warm liquid splattered over Tony's shoulder and down his back. A moment later, a horrible sour smell filled the air around him, while Elli resumed her crying, a deeply disgusted undertone to her cries.

"UGH! Ukk- you and me both, kid. Oh, god, oh **fuck** , this is **nasty**! **Ugh** , what did you **do** to that food?” Tony choked, trying to keep his stomach from joining in and spilling everything he ever ate onto the carpet.   
“Well Sir, the acidity of stomach acids-”

"Oh don't you start with me, you piece of junkyard metal, this was **your** fucking idea! And **you** don't even have a nose so not. A. word!” Tony snapped, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible while he laid Elli down on the bed and found something to wipe her mouth with. The child was still crying at the top of her lungs, which made him really happy about the money he invested in soundproofing each floor and each room in the tower. As soon as his hands were no longer filled with squirming baby, he grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled, doing his best to avoid smearing the mess further on his skin.

"Ugh, kid, this is **nasty**! And I mean on an epic level! You're a military grade chemical hazard, is what you are. And I really liked that shirt!” Yup, there was no saving the shirt because there was no way to unsmell that smell and he was quite sure the shirt will give him flashbacks if he ever wore it again. He dumped it in a bag and tied it shut for good measure before throwing it away. Then came the real problem.

"Oh, I don't believe I have to do this...” he couldn't leave Ell alone and wailing long enough for a decent shower, so with a deep, regretful sigh he opened the cold water in the shower and ducked beneath the spray. He would just have to rinse the sour-milky disaster quickly and go back to figuring this out.   
  
That resolve held just until the water hit his body.

"AAH!” it was **freezing**. Ice-bucket-challenge freezing and Tony- well, he had a sort of a **problem** with icy cold water pouring over his head. He gasped involuntarily, inhaling a mouthful of water started coughing, and suddenly he wasn't in his shower anymore, and the water tasted like mold and rust and blood and he couldn't **breath** -

"N-No!” he stumbled back, trying to squirm out of the hold of invisible hand he **knew** had to be there, waiting to plunge him under again and his foot slipped, sending him flying backwards, far backwards, too far because the battery wires weren't that long and **they were going to be yanked out** and he was going to die **going to die going to die going to-**

 

And that's when the back of his head hit the shower wall with a crack that sent about fifty Jericho missiles to explode before his eyes. He sat stunned, his vision clearing gradually until he could watch numbly as the water flowed down the drain, harmless and clear now to everyone but himself because he was fucking Stark, and things could never be easy for him.

" **Fuck!** ” he said with feeling because really, fuck the universe. It couldn't cut him some slack even when he was finally trying to do something right.

 

He didn't know how long he sat like that, naked and shivering, trying to calm his breath and his heart and stop his chest from hurting as if water had just been poured on the old battery contacts because he was **fine** , really, before he became aware of the sounds around him once more.

 

"-ir! Sir! Please respond. You have experienced head trauma. Please respond. Countdown to emergency protocol execution initiated. One minute and thirty seconds. Sir! Are you in need of assistance? Please respond. Countdown to emergency protocol execution initiated. One minute and twenty seconds. Sir! Please re-”

"I'm fine, I'm fine, Jarvis, abort emergency protocol. I'm fine. ….I'm fine,” he managed, though he didn't really feel it.

"Sir, I am relieved to hear your response. Aborting protocol now. Though, Sir, you have experienced head trauma. I strongly recommend seeking medical attention,” JARVIS responded, sounding as relieved as a machine could sound.

"Glad to hear you too, buddy and it's a negative on the medics. Too fucking tired and it was only a light bump on the head, nothing grave.” Plus, Elli was still wailing.

"Sir, I really think-”  
“I said no. If it was anything grave you wouldn't have asked, you would have called them already. Now, do something useful and adjust water temperature to body temp and let's get this over with,” he winced at he pulled himself up slowly. Yup, he was going to feel that tomorrow. He wasn't thrilled about the prospect of plunging himself back under the stream of water, raised temperature or not, but he did it anyway, just to prove himself he still could. The lukewarm water fell innocently down his back, and slowly, his breath returned to normal. His hands were next to useless with their makeshift nylon covers, but he managed to get the scent of sour milk off his skin and that, in his books, was quite enough of a challenge for this night. Jarvis, thankfully, said nothing more of the matter apart from feeding him updates on Elli's condition, which was largely unchanged. She was still on the bed, she was still screaming and still pink, oddly enough. It seemed that his whole ordeal took no more than a few minutes. He toweled off and threw on a pair of shorts and a new shirt, then braced himself and returned to the bed and the fuming infant on it.

 

"I'm sorry baby, I just wasn't ready for that insta-fountain of goo,” he tried to placate her by lifting her back into his arms, not before draping a towel over his shoulder. Let no one say he didn't learn from his mistakes. However, his apologies did nothing to placate Elli, who was still crying at the top of her voice.

"Well, so much for that. Burping her did nothing good. And I still have no idea what the fuck is wrong!” Tony moaned, doing his best to keep his hold on the squirming infant.

"I believe we **have** identified the correct cause, Sir. My knowledge of alien physiology is limited, but I do believe my scanners indicate what appears to be a form of indigestion or gastric discomfort, the cause for which is inconclusive,” JARVIS interjected.

"Yeah, yeah, alright, so you know the problem, but how do I solve it, and- stop this fog horn concert?” Tony asked sharply. Because really, this was giving his migraine a migraine.

"Well, Sir, without tested knowledge of her reaction to human medicine, and without knowledge of her tolerance for chamomile, and lastly without access to chamomile tea, I regret to say there is little to do but make sure she is as comfortable as can be and wait for her stomach to settle,” the AI informed regretfully. Tony groaned miserably.

"Oh, awesome. Just awesome. I'm not **built** for this! C'mon, Iron Lungs, please please pretty please stop crying, Tony has damage control to do tomorrow. Do you know how hard it is to write code for a self-sustaining defense protocol that allows remote control over a highly desirable weapon when you haven't slept for four days? Mind, you' I've done that several times, but I didn't have to divide my attention between that and a kid before. This reminds me of a story, actually...” he blabbered on, speaking over Elli's cries, more to prevent himself from going nuts than anything else. He paced back and forth, having found a rhythm after a few rounds that allowed him to keep his mind on other matters. It became almost hypnotic, this back and forth trudge across the room, rocking Elli gently in effort to lull her to sleep and pitching his stream of words against her constant crying. He lost track of time, walking in a haze that was frustratingly just that side of sleep. It seemed he was walking for hours, for days, like a man in a dream.

 

So he was unprepared for the moment, Elli gave her strongest cry yet, arched her back and the temperature of the bundle in his arms plummeted sharply. He startled, breaking pace and clutching at her reflexively as the metal surrounding his arc reactor went ice cold, enough to sting.

"Fuck! I'm awake, I'm awake, no need to give me jump scares, you demanding little-” the words died on his lips as he realized he could hear himself clearly and that **his voice was the only noise in the room**. The silence seemed to ring with the echoes of cries that were no longer there, so silent it was deafening after what seemed like hours of noise.

"Wha-?” he hurried to hold Elli at arm's length, suddenly terrified that he might find she had choked or burst a blood vessel- or something. Elli watched him back with a set of glistening ruby eyes, blinking rapidly as if she too could not believe it was finally over. She hiccupped a few times, as if considering whether she should resumed her crying, but seemed to decide there was no longer need to. In fact, whatever it was that bothered her seemed to have vanished, or resolved itself or- something.

"Huh...” Tony hummed, probably echoing Elli's sentiment as he wondered what had just happened. Or was it the sleep deprivation speaking. They stared at each other for a long moment, probably both waiting to see what would happen, before Elli finally heaved a little, tired sigh and yawned.

"Heh, my thought exactly, Kid. I don't know what happened, or how long it would last, but let's make the best of it. **God** I'm tired,” he held the child to his chest, head pounding with the aftermath of all the noise, and walked back to the bed.

"I'm not sure what that was, Kid. But I'm glad you feel fine now,” he whispered, holding her tighter for a long moment. Surprisingly, she didn't squirm at all and despite the chill of her skin, his chest felt suddenly very warm inside.

"Yeah. Now off to bed with you,” he said softly as he laid her back in her pillow nest. “Tomorrow we'll build you a bed. Promise.”   
with that he finally, **finally** threw himself into bed, limbs strewn haphazardly where he fell, and was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.

 

XxxxXxxxX

 

The rays of early morning filtered through the living-room windows, illuminating the comfortable couches with soft, golden highlights when Bruce got out of the elevator, his Bio-Hazard suit crinkling unpleasantly. He was an early riser by nature, at least in Tony's standards, but he wanted to get back to the lab and test out some theories that nagged at him during the night. He had consulted JARVIS and the AI had assured him that he has full access to Tony's private labs as promised, and that he would be able to get out of the cumbersome suit as soon as he reached Tony's apartment floor or the lab. To his surprise, the AI had then insisted he would pay a visit to said apartment floor before he hit the lab. Intrigued and a little worried, he took the now restricted elevator up to Tony's quarters.

 

And found the inventor already up, pacing around the kitchen with a fussy child over his shoulder and an expression of dazed shock not unlike that of a train-wreck survivor on his face. His incredulous gaze was met with Tony's bloodshot, bleary eyes which shone with a slightly frightening sheen of desperation.

"Brucie...” he groaned. “Kid's broken Brucie, and I dunno how to fixit.... fix it for me? C'mon, buddy, do me a solid?” Tony stumbled into a chair as he spoke, despite Elli's cries of discomfort. “No dice, Baby, can't walk anymore. No way,” he slurred, putting the child in a carrier that looked freshly assembled. Elli's protests intensified, and Tony buried his head in his hands with a groan.

"Tony- are you drunk?”

"Are you nuts?” the inventor snapped, his head rising from his hands to fix Bruce with a glare. “'Fcourse m'not! Who even had time to **drink**?” he whined. “Kid kept me up most of the night. You might want to look into your decision that the non-dairy stuff is ok for her, because she's **not** ok with it,” he elaborated grumpily. Bruce turned his gaze to watch Elli with fresh worry.

"Did she have a reaction?”

" **Reaction**? Kid spent half the night screaming and trying her best to fly out of my hands! Jarv and I **think** it's a bellyache, but then we can't really know, now can we,” Tony muttered darkly. Bruce looked him up and down in silence, then got up and walked over to the coffee maker and back, and set a steaming cup of coffee before the irritable inventor. Tony lifted it to his lips with a mechanic motion, as if he didn't even realize what he was doing. “I held her through it, then slept for an hour or two, then got up to feed her again only for the whole ordeal to start again. I built her carrier in hope that she was just unhappy with her bed. But nope. Bruce, I don't know what to **do**.” At that moment, Elli started crying in earnest again. Tony whined and got to his feet again, taking her in his arms and resuming his pacing.

“Good god, Kid, you have the wicked timing of a boot-camp drill sergeant!” he complained, trudging across the kitchen and back, looking not unlike a zombie. Bruce rubbed a hand through his hair thoughtfully.

"I really don't know what to say, Tony. There is no food I can think of that would be less hazardous to try. I don't know if it's an intolerance to one of the components or simply an adjustment she needs to make to the new food. How long did her stomach ache last before?”

"I have no idea. I lost track after half an hour,” Tony said tiredly. The inventor really needed sleep. He looked like he did after a particularly long and desperate science binge. “I don't get it. She was fine the first time we fed her!”

"Well, perhaps the reaction took time to develop. It's not unusual,” Bruce offered.   
“Yeah, but how does it suddenly stop?” Tony pressed.

"Just stop? What do you mean?”

"Well, it didn't just ebb slowly into nothingness. One moment she was screaming at the top of her lungs, the next she was fine! I don't get it,” the inventor explained, turning to pace back across the room, swaying slightly to rock Elli gently in his hold. Bruce frowned.

"That's not right. Indigestion doesn't just stop. Are you sure-”

"Ung! Kid, you can't just go Ice Queen on me without warning! Damn metal chest support,” Tony cut into his words, jumping as if stung and holding Elli away from the Arc reactor as she arched and turned blue, her face contorted in the misery of her aching belly.

"Why are you not dressed to counter that?” Bruce asked.

"Because I'm tired and I forgot, **mom**. Cut me some slack, ok? I'm operating on the few brain cells still awake,” Tony snapped. A moment later, he groaned and shook his head. “Sorry Bruice, tired Tony isn't nice Tony. Shouldn't have snapped at you.” he said tiredly. But Bruce didn't care much about that at the moment. In fact, his whole attention was focused at Elli.

"Er- Tony?” he said hesitantly.

"Mmm?”

"It's quiet.”

"Mmwhat? Oh- oh, it is! Elli stopped crying!” the inventor held the child at arm's length, beaming down at her. “Feeling better again, Kid? Ready for some more sleep? Yeah, yeah you are. Your eyes are closing, and so are mine, actually. What do you say-”

"Tony” Bruce said more urgently. “At night, did Elli stop crying when she turned blue?” The inventor blinked owlishly at him for a moment, before his gaze sharpened.

"You know what, she did...... she did! And she did now! And... back when we first fed her, she turned after the feeding! Do you think-”  
“I do. I can't be sure before we test it further, but I do think the shifting is the key. It's logical, if you think about it. If you consume food in one form, and you must change forms, what happens to the food? There are several common theories, though I never checked what happens to the meal I ate when the Other Guy appears...” Bruce's voice trailed off as he actually thought about that for a second.

"Brucie, you know I love it when you speak geek to me and I would love to brainstorm about Hulk feeding habits with you, even make some experiments, but I'm barely awake right now. I know the basic theories. One, food disappears-”  
“But that would be a waste of resources. I would like to think a successful race's physique is more efficient than that.”

"-right, so second theory, it stays the same-”  
“Only, it can prove quite a hazard, even deadly, depending on the origin form and its eating habits, and the destination form and its physique,” Bruce counted on his fingers.  
“-yes, so third option, food changes with the form, or fourth option, food is converted to basic components which provide equal energy and nutrients to ingested food, by some way of accelerated digestion by- magic- mumbo something- that,” Tony finished with a flourish of his hand. By this time, Elli was curled against his shoulder, head nestled at the crook of his neck, still blue but apparently only slightly cool and nearly asleep. It seemed the infant was equally drained by the ordeal as her caretaker. Tony sighed softly and bent, laying her gently in the carrier, where she fell asleep the next moment.

"Yes, it would almost have to be something like that. Either the food morphs with her into something she can digest, or, by some mechanism related to her ability to change form, it is decomposed into base components her body can absorb. As you said, insta-digestion, which solves her problem. Mind you, I do think this was just a case of sensitivity and not a base incompatibility of the food. I do not think her body would succeed in morphing something she was never meant to eat in this form in the first place,” Bruce mused.

"Well, she would have saved us both a lot of pain if she would have just morphed when it started,” Tony groaned and sat down, nursing his coffee.

"Err- are you sure you should be drinking this now?”

"Brucie, even a swimming pool's worth of coffee couldn't keep me awake right now. I'm good,” the inventor waved him off.

"Well, as the closest thing to a doctor on this property, I discourage it,” Bruce warned, though he knew it was a lost battle. “As for Elli's timing, I'm not sure it's a completely automatic mechanism, and she did seem to have some difficulty with it. My guess would be that once the stomach ache starts, her body has difficulty to change because of her physical reaction. It might even be painful at that stage. From now on, if there is a way you have noticed to encourage her to change form, you should engage is after you feed her.”

"Aye aye, captain. Now, this ship's sailing to bed before Mistress Demanding here wakes up again. Sorry buddy, but you're on solo lab duty for the next few hours,” Tony said with genuine apologetic expression on his face. Bruce gave him his usual barely there smile, a smile that for some reason, the inventor never missed.

"Go to bed, Tony. I'll hold the fort.”

"Thanks, buddy. Another one I owe you.”

"As I said, who's counting?” A few moments more, and Bruce was alone in the kitchen.

 

"Is he asleep, Jarvis?” he asked the ever present caretaker of the house.

"As soon as his body hit the bedding, Dr Banner,” the AI answered, almost fondly. “I dare say, Dr Banner, that Sir **is** really trying. He has been more patient with little Miss Elli than he ever was with any human being, and he sacrifices more of his comfort for her own than I've ever recorded him do for any other person.” The AI sounded mildly surprised and slightly defensive. Bruce allowed himself a smile, then sighed and stood, taking the accursed hazard suit with him.

"I know Jarvis. And this is why I intend to stick around and help him.” he looked directly at one of the AI's cameras, and gave a little nod. Then, he turned. “Alright then. It's time to get to work.”


	10. Of Necessary Adjustments and Flying Toasters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I'm still alive. I know some of you have come to doubt it. Unfortunately, family health issues have taken most of my time, as well as finally getting my degree (yay!) and moving back with my parents to be of help at home, which is also related to said health issues. These circumstances had left me with little time to write. I truely apologize.  
> This chapter is rather long, but I do think its pace is still too slow. I will try to move tihngs along faster both in and out of the story.  
> I'm not sure about the title of that chapter. If any of you have a better idea, please leave the offer in the comments, if I happen to find one to my liking, I will credit the contributor!
> 
> Thank you, thank you thank you, for all those who had left comments, reviews and kudos. your words and signs of interest are what keeps me motivated!  
> Also, if any of you happen to have writing prompts you wish to see written, feel free to offer them in the comments. Sometimes, I dont have the inspiration or time to do my normal writing, but I can be inspired to write sometihng short, a one shot or something like that. I dont promise to accept them, but I'll take a look at all of them and credit the one offering if I write any of them.

Mornings were overrated.

That was the thought on his mind when he woke up again. Or- well, waking up in general, that was totally overrated. He actually wasn't sure it was still morning. The room was dark, courtesy of Jarvis, he was sure. He sat up and stretched, flinching as his muscles protested and his body reminded him of the tumble he had taken in the shower last night. Well, at least he no longer felt as if he was going to start crying along with Elli anymore. That was something, right?

 

Speaking of which, the kid seemed to be happy with her new accommodations. The carrier was resting in the middle of the bed and Elli was watching him with interest, munching on a fist and issuing the occasional coughing cry he was sure was meant to draw his attention more than anything else. She was probably hungry again, but not enough to exert more energy by full blown crying just yet.

"Good morning, little Bluebird. Time to eat again?” he asked quietly. Elli blinked at him and made that coughing little cry again. He decided to take that as an affirmative answer.  
“Jarv, what time is it? Any missed calls? Love letters from Fury? Armies with murderous intents on the way?” he raked a bandaged hand through his hair and winced as it snagged on a snarl. Yup, bathroom first.

"The current time is thirty six minutes past ten AM, Sir. There are several missed calls to address. I deferred to Dr. Banner's expertise in the matter, as he was adamant you should get as much undisturbed sleep as possible,” the AI responded dutifully.

"Yeah, and you had absolutely no opinion on said matter. Mother Hen,” Tony grumbled. “Fine. Give me a moment and then lay it on me. I'd rather know the trouble chasing me.”

 

A few frustrating minutes later he was more or less dressed and presentable, if an AC/DC shirt, faded pants and clumsily combed hair can be called that. As his pre-coffee appearances went, though, it was considered immaculate.

"Ok, let's hear the bad news. Who is going to yell at me through the phone today?” he asked as he grabbed Elli's carrier and headed for the kitchen.

"The first call was from Miss Potts, Sir. She inquired as to your overall health, both mental and physical, and for that of the child.”

"Oh? Who did she ask about first?” Tony asked with a bit of a morbid curiosity.

"That would he Miss Elli, Sir,” Jarvis provided. Surprisingly enough, Tony found that amusing.

"Fair enough, I guess. I wouldn't trust myself with a child either,” he said drily.

"Under the circumstances, I'd say you are doing remarkably well, Sir,” the AI countered.

"Oh, don't coddle me, Jarvis. I've been doing a surprising amount of self-reflecting lately. I know myself well enough. Who's next?”

"That would be Captain Rogers, Sir. He had inquired about your health and your progress with your concocted contamination. He had seemed quite worried,” Jarvis provided. Tony put down the can of formula and gave the closest camera a filthy look.

"Oh, don't you guilt trip me. Cap is being lied to daily by Big Bad One-eyed Wolf. If anything, I'm telling the most benign lies among us. And Elli's safety is more important than his damaged feelings. He'll live.”

"I was not implying anything with my wording, Sir. Perhaps you are experiencing a case of what is referred to as 'guilty conscience',” the AI responded, and hell if he didn't sound just a bit smug, the dirty bastard. Guh.

"Alright, ok. Ugh. **Not** going there, thank you. What did you tell him?” he asked, shaking Elli's bottle and, thankfully, remembering to pinch the nipple shut as he did so.

"I communed that you are resting, that your condition is stable and that you are not close to a solution yet,” yeah, and one couldn't really stay angry at Jarvis for long.

“Good job, Jarv. I knew I can count on you. Who's next on my list of well-wishers?” Elli's carrier was on the dining table again, and he left it there as he took her into his arms and gave her the bottle, which was accepted with way too much enthusiasm for white sour goo, if you ask him.

"The next call was from Agent Barton. He asked me to pass on a message to you when you woke up, Sir.” The AI fell silent and in the next moment, the room filled with background noise not unlike that of the Quintjet at flight.

_"Hey Tony! I know Steve said not to harass you and let you work, but he never quite gets the right feeling across when he calls. Thought I'd give you a call and make sure you don't sit on your ass and twiddle your toes while we do all the work! C'mon, get things down and get better so we can continue our competition! You still owe me a bottle of Blue-Label Johnny for the last battle! I was looking forward to winning more! Don't you dare getting blown up by micro-bugs, hear me? See ya soon!”_

The recording ended there and left Tony with a terrible sinking feeling he did **not** want to take a better look at because it just might be guilt. And he didn't do guilt. Well, not very well, anyway. So he got up and started pacing again as Elli gulped down her breakfast like the cutest camel to ever walk the earth.

"Cocky bastard. He cheated and he knows it! Plus, he bets on a 200$ bottle when I have a 40 year old Dalmore in plain sight. No respect for quality. Ugh,” He grumbled under his breath. “Anyway. Any more well-wishers?”

"I would not call it exactly that, Sir. However, Director Fury did acquire as to your health status,” Jarvis answered carefully. Tony groaned. Of course Fury would be at his neck.

"The man just can't get the meaning of 'leave of absence', can he,” Tony rolled his eyes and pulled the bottle out of Elli's mouth, because the kid was sucking on air with an almost Stark-signature stubbornness. The removal of the rubber nipple was met with protest, as Elli focused the bright emeralds she had for eyes on him and started a tirade of coughing complaining cries, not quite wails yet, but he knew they could turn into ones very quickly.

"What? Kid, it's empty! I can't give you more, you're not supposed to eat more at this age! You can't still be hungry... can you?” Pepper had shown him the instructions on the powder can. They had a specific quantity instructions for each age and up until now, they seemed legit. So why was it suddenly not enough? Elli, however, couldn't read instructions and so she seemed to ignore them completely, her cries turning more demanding.

"You can't fit so much fluid into your stomach! Oh, alright, **alright** , Iron Lungs, let's get you another round, on the house,” he relented with a sigh and placed the squirming Elli back in the carrier while he went about preparing another bottle. “I just know this will come back to bite me in the ass,” he murmured as he picked Elli back up and gave her the bottle. Her cries stopped as soon as the rubber teat touched her lips and she went right back to suckling with determination and focus that made him chuckle.

"Right, what were we talking about?”

"Director Fury, Sir.”

"Right, right. What did he want, aside from making my life miserable?” Tony asked as he paced the kitchen floor.

"To make sure you are working on a solution to your problem. He went as far as to offer the assistance of some of his personnel, which I declined, seeing as I am well aware of your views on the matter and the Director is well aware it is so.” The AI said with an air of determination which hinted there might have been some debate on the matter before the director relented.

"Good boy, Jarv. We don't need the bad boys poking around in our back yard. Pah! As if I would ever let one of his buffoons in white lab coats into my playground. Not in a million years, Elli aside,” Tony snorted.

Finally, Elli stopped eating, though the cause seemed to be mainly the limited capacity of her stomach. He suspected that given the ability, she would have drank her entire weight in white goo.

"Greedy little bluebird, are you?” he said rather fondly, putting the bottle aside and shrugging on the sleeved comforter once more. “Now- hate to break it to you Kid, but you need to turn blue. Unless you want another stomach ache and believe me, you don't want another stomach ache, because ew, and because you **want** a sane Tony to take care of you. Believe me. So c'mon, do your trick, Ice Queen, here we go-” He bounced Elli gently, looking at her expectantly. Well, apparently, it wasn't going to be as easy as asking. While Elli did seem positively interested in his voice, his words seemed to have no effect on her and as the moments lengthened, he felt his heart sink.

"Of course it's not that fucking easy. Stark policy, isn't it?” he sighed. “C'mon baby, pretty pretty please, turn blue, c'mon Bluebird...” Elli adored the attention, apparently. She was looking at him in delight, kicking her legs lightly and then- she smiled, and for some reason he couldn't bring himself to look away. Kid was getting to him, he just knew it. But again, she showed no signs of turning blue.

"You're illegally cute Baby-Blue, but you're terrible at following directions, you know that? Jaaarv, how do I tell her to shift?” he whined, feeling maybe a bit too sorry for himself, but come on, he had had a rough night.

"Perhaps it would be wise to consider the previous times the child had transformed, and what triggered those events,” the AI offered blandly.

"Well, duh. Because apparently my brain is on strike today. Jarv, do me a favor and coffee me because I'm embarrassing myself here,” he said, rubbing his brow with no small amount of frustration. Usually he functioned way better under duress. But then, usually, he was allowed to drink as much coffee and alcohol as he wanted in the process.

"Ok,” he said as he heard the coffee machine whirr to life on the counter “So first time she changed, she was damn angry, which I don't think I'd want to replicate because Ow. My fingers still hurt. But then she changed on the gurney of the medical scanner and she was not angry, just naked and cold- which is a Bingo, ladies and gentlemen! Temperature trigger for the Endothermic alien. Ok, **this** I can do.” And it didn't even require a change of attire, if he was right- which he usually was, let's face it. He turned to the fridge and took an ice cube out of the ice compartment.

"Ok, Baby-Blue, work your magic. Here's a yummy ice cube for you, don't you like ice?” he murmured a non-stop litany of words as he pressed the ice to Elli's lips. Her expression shifted to mild surprise before she started suckling at the corner of the cube, just like before, and slowly, like watching frost form on a window pane, blue crawled from her mouth and throughout her body. He watched, mesmerized, as the unique lines appeared on her skin, like doodles of an absent-minded artist.

"There's my smart girl. Very good, Ells. You're awesome, you know that? Of course you do.” He was not cooing, as he held her to him and let her suckle the ice cube until it melted. Nope, definitely not cooing. By the time he placed her back in her carrier, his coffee was ready. He retrieved it and sat down with a groan, and alternated between sips of the molten hot liquid and spoonfuls from a bowl of cereal he threw together, too spent to attempt anything more complicated for breakfast. Frankly, all he wanted at this point was to go back to bed. Unfortunately, it wasn't an option.  
  
“Ok, ok. So, agendas for today. Jarvis, make a list. One, starting development of the remote controlled suit. Well, actually, I need to set a place for Elli in the shop first, because I can't leave her alone and things tend to blow up in there. So, one, everything-proof a space in the workshop for Baby-Blue. Two, start development on Puppet Master Protocol. Yes, that's the project's name, make a folder. Three, see Bruce about his Elli-research. Actually, make that the number one on the list. And then I have to build Elli's bed somewhere in the middle, because let me tell you, pillow fort is **not** working for me,” he counted on his fingers as he spoke, alternating the other hand between the coffee mug and the cereal spoon. Elli was watching him intently from her carrier while she suckled on a fist, still blue and red eyed, as if she was about to start taking notes. He found that unbelievably adorable.  
“Might I suggest a diaper change as the first item on the list, Sir?” Jarvis reminded him.

"Ew. Yeah, we'll get to that in a moment,” Tony sighed.

"And a meeting with Dr. Banner to replace your bandages?” the AI pressed.

"Fine, **fine** , Mom.” Tony groaned, tossing his spoon into the bowl with a clink. “One would think **I'm** the child around here,” he murmured as he climbed to his feet and pointedly ignored the stab of pain in his back as he took hold of the carrier.

"Ok. Come on, Baby Blue. Let's get you cleaned up.”  
  
A few long and unpleasant minutes later, the mess was dealt with and buried in a waste basket Tony told himself he must move up the list of the cleaning bots to top priority. At least he was actually getting better at this. A moment of thought about going down to the lab yielded the need to take a few diapers and changing materials with him, since the thought of going up and down every three hours or so made him want to bang his head against the wall. He ended up digging up one of the bags he snagged at one of the company's recruiting events. Students just loved being handed stuff for free and Tony liked to make sure that the company didn't skimp out on materials. If he was going to hand something to the masses it'd better be top quality.

The things ended up piling at the top of his closet, though. They used to be a nuisance, but now one finally came in handy as he stuffed diapers, cream and wipes inside, along with a ridiculously tiny outfit or two. Further contemplation had him carrying Ellie back to the kitchen and stuffing a bottle and a can of powder inside as well. Better stock the lab while he was at it.

Armed with all those baby-necessities, he finally made his way to the now restricted elevator and pressed the button that would take him to what he now dabbed 'Bruce's lab', though it was part of his own.

 

The eternally tired looking physicist was sitting by a clear table when he entered, what looked suspiciously like an open first aid kit by his side.

"Jarvis you narc,” he muttered at the closest audio input, sending the AI the evil eye through the cameras.

"I was under the assumption your schedule is quite full today and time is of the essence, Sir, which I assumed would be best served by being prompt. Shall I request Dr. Banner to repack his medical supplies so that you would be able to personally ask for his aid?” the AI asked pleasantly. Tony made a face.  
“Don't sass me, you glorified Toaster!” he pointed a finger at the nearest camera, which wasn't an easy feat with both bag and baby carrier in his arms. A moment later, the nostalgic theme music of 'Flying Toasters' filled the room, startling poor Bruce and rendering him quite confused.

“'After Dark'?” the physicist inquired, arching his brow as he pulled his reading glasses off. “What prompted that?”  
“Jarvis thinks he's funny,” Tony answered sullenly, placing Elli's carrier on the table and his bag on the floor.  
“Well, he's the most amusing AI I know,” Bruce said evenly, folding his glasses neatly and placing them on the desk.  
“Now, don't encourage him!” Tony called, in sync with Jarvis's polite “Thank you, Dr. Banner.” The physicist smiled faintly, at which Tony rolled his eyes with a groan. Really? His science bro was now teaming up with his own creation to mock him. Figures.

"Flying toasters, though?” Bruce asked tentatively.

"Oh shut up,” Tony scoffed. “I loved that screen saver back in the day, thought it was hilarious. I loved that little theme song even better. I even built one!”

"Built what?”  
“A flaying toaster,” Tony exclaimed with a grin.  
“You didn't.”  
“Oh, but I did. Poor thing, ended up cloth-lining itself to death on some high voltage wires. I bet it was quite a conversation piece for the maintenance guys who had to untangle it. I never quite confessed it was mine.” Bruce was watching him with an odd look on his face and he was quite sure incredulity was the main emotion he could detect.

"See, I can't tell if you're kidding or not. What does that tell us about you?” the physicist asked evenly.

"That I'm awesome?” Tony shot back with a wag of his brows. That actually earned him a chuckle, which he considered a win. “Now, please look at my hands so Jarvis will stop being a mother hen and we can move on to the more important things?” he gave Bruce his best puppy eyes. Which, apparently were not impressive, because the physicist rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Your hands **are** important, Tony,” he scolded.

"Yeah yeah. And they are also just **fine**. They don't hurt more than normal burns- ow!” he flinched as the bandages caught and pulled on his skin as they were removed.

"Sorry. Also, as I just demonstrated, it doesn't mean that they don't **hurt**. You have to be careful with burns,” Bruce said calmly as he slowly peeled the rest of the bandages off.

 

He had to admit, they didn't look all too good. But then, he'd really had worse. Killian, New York, his stunts as Iron-man had earned him an array of injuries that were more than painful. Some of them had threatened to leave permanent damage. And his time with the Ten Rings- well, he had endured worse, enough said. He watched as Bruce cleaned the burns, some of which had previously blistered and now popped into an unpleasant-to-the-eye mess. The physicist then applied something that smelled like ozone on new bandages and wrapped each digit with the odd ointment. It stung, but he didn't question the treatment. Bruce usually knew what he was doing, and that was enough. It didn't mean he was quiet.

"Ow. Ow, **ow**! Brucie, these are still alive, you know,” he complained, though his hands remained stable in their place. Sooner than he thought, the treatment was done and his fingers were re-bandaged.

"This will speed your healing. I've seen it do wonders with burns. **Don't** overwork them,” Bruce cautioned, and Tony had to admit the physicist just knew him too well.

"Right. I won't. I'll try. Thanks, pal,” he said, resisting the urge to rake his fingers through his hair. Bruce hummed in response, looking a bit doubtful. Time for a change of subject.

 

“Right! Now, let's return to the matter we're all here for! Elli, my dear, say good morning to uncle Banner,” he said lightly, pulling Elli's carrier across the table. It seemed the idea of his care developing into simulated familial relation didn't occur to the physicist yet, because Bruce froze, blinking at him like a disturbed owl for a long moment before he turned his attention to the carrier and the child within it. Elli, now back to her porcelain-raven and emerald coloration, seemed to have no such reservations. She looked at Banner with interest, kicking her feet lightly.  
“So! I got her to turn blue after breakfast and guess what? We were right. She's been quiet ever since. No tantrums, no stomach aches, no- eh- sudden goo fountains. In fact, she's been hungry. I had to give her about twice the amount written on the can and I had the distinct notion she would have kept going if she could fit any more liquid into her stomach. Any idea what's with that?” he relayed dutifully. Bruce shrugged.

"We know next to nothing about her metabolism. The quantities on the can refer to a **human** , Tony,” he reminded gently. Tony groaned. Right. Blue baby aliens are not human babies.

"So, I should- you know- indulge her?” he asked, hoping he didn't sound as helpless as he felt. Bruce hummed.

"I think you should, within reason. I've been talking to my friend. I'm asking careful questions and so far, he's giving answers without asking for clarifications, so it's a workable arrangement. Jerry's smart. I think he realizes more than he lets on, or at least suspects it, but he's respecting our arrangement and he's been very helpful, so far. I spent most of the evening yesterday reviewing my biology, especially where it delves into the habits of cold climate species.” The physicist gave him a cautious look while fishing around in his pocket. He pulled out a piece of cloth and proceeded to clean his glasses with care, and Tony bit his tongue and avoided the half dozen comments that tickled at the edge of his tongue because he knew Bruce could not be rushed. Finally, the physicist sighed and placed the glasses down.  
“What I have for you at the moment are only assumptions and theories. I can't verify them until we watch Elli over a period of time. But there are a few common traits that most cold climate species display, especially those of harsh climates. Your observation of her hunger may play into one of these traits, namely, the nutrition quality of young specimens. Mind you, I'm talking about non-sentient species here, but the logic remains.” Tony bit his tongue even harder and resisted the urge to show his impatience which was rather mature of him, if he should say so himself.

"Most of the animals that live in harsh cold climates depend on mass and insulation to survive. The young of such species are born with neither, and so they must accumulate both as fast as possible. Polar-resident mammals rely on their mothers' rich milk for this. Since Elli is half Jotun and seems to display their traits, at least in one of her two forms, it may well be that she is meant to consume a more concentrated, richer milk. We can't verify that but if she seems hungry still, I suggest you give her as much food as she wants. If that doesn't satisfy her, you can increase the concentration of the formula by adding more powder to less water. We will watch her over time and see how well that will sustain her,” the physicist explained.

"Which reminds me- I'd like to draw some blood.”

 

There was so much new information to process that it took a moment for the words to sink in.

"Wait a second what?!” Tony blurted. Well, it's not as if it wasn't the logical course of action. He could see how much information could potentially be derived from a study of Elli's blood. He **knew** that. Yet somehow as soon as the words were processed he felt a surge of unexpected protectiveness well up in his chest and the very thought of a needle going into the porcelain skin of Elli's hand, of blood being taken from her- he loathed it.

"Na-uh. Not happening,” he blurted out before he could think better of it. Bruce gave him an odd, patient look.

"It will give us a thorough picture of her health status, something we would be able to compare to later samples. It would show how she metabolizes, the components of her blood, so many things that would be clearer with access to her blood,” the physicist explained patiently, calmly, as if talking to a nervous person at the nurse's office. Which, he guessed, wasn't so far off from the truth only he wasn't nervous for **himself**. Oh, and his lab beat the crap out of any nurse's office.

"But we can't just- stick her with needles like she's a lab rat. She's a **baby**! I don't want to hurt her, I- I promised!” he said, trying very hard to ignore how much he sounded like a hysteric mother. Not that he knew first-hand how **that** sounded like. His mother had been... well, she had a different temperament.

“I'm not sticking her with needles to satisfy some curiosity!” he said stubbornly, even so. Bruce took a deep, slow breath.  
“Tony, try to be reasonable, please. You know I would be the **last one** to ever do something like this for mere curiosity,” the physicist offered gently and Tony felt like kicking himself over the hurt hinted in his voice. He did know. Bruce had his fair share of experience with people wanting to stick needles in him for various selfish reasons. And worse.

"This is for Elli's own sake, you know that. If we can understand her better, she'll be safer, healthier, happier. We'll be able to satisfy her needs better, even ask Jarvis to build a medical simulation and test her expected reaction to medical treatment,” the physicist reasoned. And the funny thing was, Tony **knew** Bruce was right, and he **knew** he was being unreasonable, but there was that part of him that kept growling ' _mine!_ ' at the back of his head and despite Tony telling it to **shut up** and that the baby wasn't even his daughter, let alone his in some primitive cave-man-instinct kind of way, the possessive feeling wouldn't go away.

But he was **better** than this. He was a grown man, an inventor, a genius and he wasn't going to let some base part of himself control his intellect. Not while he was **calm too** , damn it. So he stomped it down viciously, reminding himself that Elli was **not** his, **not** even **human** , and certainly was **not** going to stay if he could find a better place for her. That had been the plan, after all and it would be best served by their attempts to understand everything there was to understand about Elli, so he should just man up and get this going already.

He went through that struggle within the few seconds after the physicist's voice faded, despite how long it seemed. Bruce was still giving him a hopeful look. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"You're right, Bruce. Of course you're right, I'm sorry. It's just that- **ugh**. Really. I suck at being a parent,” he winced. “I know you'd never put scientific curiosity above what's best for Elli. It's just-” he paused “I'm afraid **I** might. You know, if given enough incentive. And that- frankly it terrifies me.” Well, hell if he knew where **that** suddenly came from, but it rang true in his ears, a fact which sent a chill down his spine. Damn it, he **knew** all that self-reflecting will lead to nothing good.

 

The room stayed quiet for a long moment and Tony did his best to avoid the gaze he could **feel** Bruce leveling at him. He didn't want to see what was in the physicist's eyes.

"Well, I think I know you well enough to say there's no danger of that happening, so you can stop frightening yourself,” Bruce calmly broke the silence. Tony's gaze snapped to his with utter shock. He wouldn't **admit** it, but he well knew what the common opinion about him was; egoistical, self-centered, profit-chasing war monger. Merchant of Death, though no newspaper had used **that** title in quite a while. And he was trying, he was **really trying** to be better than that, but deep down, where he seldom looked, he was sure his efforts would amount to nothing to the public eye when push came to shove. So he gaped, probably looking like the worst impression of a fish out of water humanity has ever known.

Bruce, mercifully, said nothing about it, but he did level too knowing a look at the stunned inventor and arched his brow.

"Well?” he asked dryly. “May we continue?” Tony shook himself visibly, almost like a dog, shaking the shock off and gathering what self-respect he had left.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's get it over with,” he huffed, pulling the still surprisingly calm and quiet Elli closer, carrier and all. It's not that he felt better about the whole thing, but he stomped the surprising protectiveness down and told it to **deal**.

"So, how are we going to do this?” he asked nervously. “Do I hold her still, or- what?”

Bruce gave him a gentle, understanding look and picked up his glasses.

"Why don't we start with what we did yesterday. Scanning, measuring and leave the blood sample for last,” he offered. Tony was ashamed of the relief that flooded him. He masked it by picking Elli out of her carrier.

"Sure thing, doc. C'mon, little Bluebird, up we go!” he said, smiling at the little girl and human theories of young infant smiles be damned, Elli was smiling back at him.

"There we go, now let's go over to the medical gurney, you remember the gurney right? Not harmful at all, just a bit cold. We'll let Jarvis scan you real quick, alright?” he jabbered in her ear as he made his way to another part of the lab, where the scanner was set.

"One day, you'll have to explain to me why do you have an equipped medical scanner in your lab when you have a complete, fully equipped, private medical ward a lift ride away,” Bruce said mildly as he followed, bag and carrier in hand.

"Yup, but today is not that day,” Tony answered with a smirk. Bruce rolled his eyes and sighed, the kind of long, heavy sigh he reserved for media jokes about the Other Guy, and for Tony. Not in that order.

"I'm afraid I have to take the blame in this matter, Dr. Banner,” Jarvis, the traitor, came forth.  
“You see, Sir has quite a record of- shall we say, workshop misfortunes. Most of them due to a persistent tendency to disregard safety protocols while testing new models. After a few incidents that caused me no small amount of alarm, I had persisted on placing a full medical scanner in the lab. It is now part of my emergency protocol in case of injury. If there is no evident concern of spinal injury, the helper robots are to place Sir onto the gurney, if he cannot do so himself,” The AI oh-so-helpfully explained, sounding as smug as a machine could ever sound. Tony winced as he remembered the arguments that preceded the addition of the scanner. That was one argument Jarvis had won in the end, though mainly because he was backed by Pepper and Pepper could be scary when she really really wanted to.

Bruce, of course, looked impressed. Whether by the machinery and concept themselves or by the fact someone had managed to force Tony's hand in matters concerning his health and safety, Tony wasn't sure he wanted to know. He did his best to ignore the whole exchange and placed Elli on the gurney, then went about removing her ridiculously tiny outfit, a fact she did not appreciate. He spent a few more minutes appeasing the complaining cries of the infant before she relaxed enough to be cooperative.

"Yeah, I'm gonna leave the diaper on, if it's all the same to you. I'd rather not disinfect that gurney again,” he said. Bruce nodded his assent silently. Tony sighed, then cracked his knuckles.

"Ok, Jarv, if you please, let's do some magic.”

 

The scan didn't take long, but Tony's impatience made the wait seem endless. Bruce waited by his side, seeming unperturbed by the wait. Though, to tell the truth, Bruce's Zen face made it hard to tell when he **was** perturbed by anything. As soon as results started filling the screens before them, though, the Physicist's calm was replaced by concentration, and Tony's impatience by the clarity reserved for his work-flow.  
“Well, still an alien, kid,” he said with a sigh. He expected some response from Bruce, a sigh, a roll of his eyes, a gentle reproach, but the physicist seemed to have not heard him at all, his eyes racing over the results. A small dent appeared between his brows, a miniscule frown that, on Bruce's Zen face, meant more than the span of the facial expression. Without a word, the physicist pulled up yesterday's scans and his eyes flitted to and fro, assessing, comparing.  
“What?” Tony asked, trying to look over his shoulder and see what it was that the self-educated doctor had caught and he didn't. But as he had told Bruce before, the 'squishy sciences' weren't something he had been interested in before, and most of the scans were just numerical values for him.

"Bruce, what?” he repeated, a slight edge of panic bleeding into his voice despite his efforts.

"Hmm?” the physicist hummed distractedly. “What? Oh-” Tony could almost see his attention snap back to the room around him. “No, it's nothing.” Tony gave him his best 'are you fucking with me' look, and he had very good looks in that department, if he should say so himself.

"Ah-huh. Yeah, and despite that?” he pressed. Bruce sighed.

"Really, Tony, its- look, you know you can't draw any conclusions, or even assumptions out of just two observations. Let's wait a few days, gather data and then, if I have anything concrete, I promise you'd be the first to know,” The physicist assured in a patient voice.

"Which mean you did see something that gave you that look of worried hush-puppy.”  
“Tony-”

"Alright, alright. I'll wait. But if I have a heart attack or nervous breakdown, I blame you. Jarvis, make a note,” Tony said, pointing accusingly at the hunched physicist.

"Noted, Sir,” the AI confirmed. Bruce sighed heavily.

"You know, I really was trying to have a stress free environment before you harnessed me into this,” he complained mildly. And deep down Tony may admit that he was feeling a teeny tiny bit guilty at the harassed look his friend had regained since yesterday.  
“I'll buy you your own island when this all calms down. Promise. You'll be able to sit on the beach all day and meditate if you want, ok?” he offered. And he even meant that, he did. Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, but there was a hint of a smile on his face. It was tired, but it was there.

"I may end up taking you up on that offer. Alright. The last thing left to do is to take some blood,” he reminded, ambling to one of the equipment drawers and coming back with blood-sampling necessities. Aaaand just like that, Tony felt all the previous anxiety rising back to press around his heart.

"Eh- ok, what do I do? Do I hold her, or-” he waved his hands over the idly kicking infant who, thank what god happened to be listening, has not turned blue yet. He wasn't even sure what flowed in her veins when she was blue even qualified as blood. Or that she had proper veins.  
“Tony,” Bruce said gently, “The first thing you need to do is relax. She'll sense it if you're agitated.” Only then did he realize his heart rate has elevated again and that he was breathing fast. Damn it.

"Ok, ok, Zen state, Zen state, I'm relaxing, I'm relaxing, relaxing, relaxed.....” yeah, relaxing has never involved being quiet, for him. Which apparently was fine because Elli liked his voice anyway. Bruce watched his attempts rather skeptically at first, until Tony cracked an eye open and frowned at him.  
“Can't do it while you're staring,” he said pointedly. After that, the physicist occupied himself with setting the needle and vials for the test while he concentrated on breathing and kept his babble going. But apparently he was still watching close enough to notice when his heart rate dropped to normal.  
“Alright. Now hold her in your arms. It would be best if you sit down, I think. You can dress her if you want, but leave one of her heels uncovered.”

"Heels? You're going to take blood from her **heel**?” Tony asked incredulously.

"Well yes. An infant's veins are too small and fragile to insert a needle into unless they need an emergency IV. If needed, blood is commonly drawn from the heel of the foot,” Bruce explained patiently.  
“Uh, Brucie, you sound like you swallowed a medical book again. These things are not good for your digestive system, you know. Alright, come here, Bluebird-” he took Elli in his arms, noting again how soft her skin seemed against his. She settled easily in his hold, emerald eyes peering up at him with interest as his mouth kept on spewing words on auto mode. He did his best **not** to look at her little leg as Bruce took it in his hand and raised the needle. He just looked into Elli's eyes and thought calm thoughts.

"Damn.” His gaze snapped to Bruce as the physicist swore.

"What? What's wrong?” he asked, calmness going out the window in a second.

"Eh- she bent the needle,” Bruce seemed almost embarrassed at his small outburst. Tony blinked.

"She- what?”

"Dense physique, remember, Tony? I used the thinnest needle I had. But her skin is not as soft as it seems.” He explained, getting up and walking to the supply cabinets again. He returned with a whole array of needles and set to work again, making Tony avert his gaze quickly again.

The second needle went into the Bio-hazard waste bin after the first one, and the third was soon to follow. A sheen of sweat was starting to form on Banner's forehead and Tony was starting to get a bit worried about the man's frustration levels.

"It just won't budge!” the physicist hissed, taking long, slow breaths as he made his fourth attempt. “I can't use thicker, sturdier needles because they are just too big for such a small baby, but even with the thickest one I dare to use, the harder I press, the harder it gets. I'm afraid to use more force because if I do puncture the skin, I won't be able to stop in time. I may do some real damage,” Bruce half explained- half complained.  
“You did say her flesh is dense, remember?”  
“Yeah but not **that** dense! She's a baby, how resilient can density make it? She's not made out of concrete. It's almost like pressing against bulletproof polymer...” Bruce mumbled, at which point Tony stopped listening because something in that description sent his mind racing down a whole new path. He had a feeling about this. He wanted to know if he was right.

"Jarv, buddy? Be a dear and do an energy scan of Elli's heel as Powerpuff here jabs at it, please. Show results on the big display.”  
“Right away Sir,” came the AI's reply, followed by the very faint whirr of machinery coming to life.

"Sir, it appears that there is a spike in the readings around the would-be puncture area as Dr. Banner attempts to apply pressure. It would seem that kinetic energy is absorbed around the needle's point and is converted, at least in part, to heat,” the scan's data appeared on screen as Jarvis delivered his report, the spike easily seen and represented as a spectrum of color.

"Huh. Bullet proof shield indeed,” Tony muttered. “My hunch was right.”  
“Care to share with the class?” Bruce's less than happy mutter came from about his elbow, where the physicist was still hunched over Elli's little leg. The fact he could clearly hear the frustration in his voice sent bells of alarm a-ringing in Tony's mind.  
“Keep your pink on, Brucie. I was just about to explain. It appears that our tiny resident alien has a built in impact shield,” he volunteered, and forgive him if he sounded a bit giddy. After all, not every day can a man get a chance to see a magic shield at work. “I **knew** Point Break's annoying immunity to all things sharp and pointy can't be chalked up solely to **density**. That would have been plain **unfair**. There appears to be **some** kind of voodoo responsible for it,” he said triumphantly.

 

“Tony, what do you **mean** by impact shield?” whoops, still grumpy with chances of Hulk.  
“Well, I can't be sure without testing it a bit more, which I'm a bit reluctant to do under the circumstances, but my best bet is that anything that her body has a natural trait that creates a shield just above her skin. It's usually idle, but when something tries to puncture her skin, its initial density deflects it just enough to alert her shield that it needs to react. My guess is that the narrower the point of impact, the tougher the shield gets, because the area of effect is narrower. Which means that little Elli can't be stabbed with a blade, but she'll get to experience the pleasure of scraping her knees on asphalt if she falls down. See, the area of effect scatters on a large surface and that-”

"I get it, Tony,” Bruce cut into his words. “And I think it's a sound theory. It still leaves a few questions, such as at what point does the shield fail, what generates it and what are the side effects, but I think the most important question at the moment is, **how the hell are we going to draw her blood and what are we going to do if she ever needs an IV**?”  
Well, fuck. That ruined the moment as completely as a train wreck.

  
Elli, probably sensing his once again mounting anxiety, started to fuss in his arms. He hummed a stream of calming words at her as his mind reeled. That's right. If her skin could not be pierced, how would they help her if they need to? He assumed such a protection could be turned off, since obviously, even space Vikings needed medical attention. But he didn't know **how**.  
“Damn, Loki, I could really use that 'alien baby manual' right now, you prick,” he hissed, then winced. “Sorry kid. You should really avoid modeling your language after me.”  
“Hear hear,” Bruce mumbled somewhere in the background and Tony had to stifle a sudden insane urge to stick out his tongue at him.  
“You know, I really wish I knew how this **works**. I had a thing with shields, a few years back. I wanted to create a portable force shield, though it could be handy. I never managed, but I got scans out of a few people with- eh- genetic enhancements, you could say, that had some form of shield or another. I had to stop because I was renovating at the time, and the drilling was rather distracting-” his voice died as he stared into space, and his mind made a leap- something he was known to do any was one of the reasons almost no one could keep up with his line of thought. It just wasn't linear. But it did provide associations other people couldn't do. And when he thought of the drilling, of the big concrete drills that vibrated their way through the foundations of his home- it hit him.  
“Brucie, buddy, hold my kid, I got this,” he said, jumping up from his chair.  
“Tony, you know I can't hold her-”  
“Then just keep an eye on her. I'm cooking a solution here,” her amended, laying Elli back in her carrier and running off, streaking across the room like a disturbed hornet, gathering this and that, slamming cabinets and shooing an inquisitive DUM-E out of his way. The curious robot was banned from entering the medical corner of the lab, a rule Tony enforced much better than he did all the other restrictions he set for the robot. But it didn't prevent the thing from wanting to know what was going on.  
After a few long moments of rummaging about, Tony returned to the table, unloading his cargo on the polished surface. His fingers were a blur of action, connecting leads to unnamed components and boxes, insulating others with tape, creating.  
“Tony- what are you doing?” Bruce's tone hinted the option the physicist was questioning his sanity again, but Tony didn't raise his gaze to look.  
“Solving our problem.”  
“How?”  
“Well, I thought about the jackhammers that were driving me crazy when I was renovating-”  
“Hammering the shield repeatedly won't make any difference, Tony,”  
“I know. But then I thought about another trait of them. The vibration, Brucie. The vibration.” Tony grinned as he peeled the end of a wire and connected it to a lead. “See, there was this thing about shields that I discovered, and it matches some things I learned about materials science. Vibration can clear a path in a way that is not brute force. It doesn't apply force **down** against the shield, but to the **sides**. It will also solve the density problem.” He opened a small box and very carefully, lifted a small needle out of it.  
“I used this in one of my experiments. It's sharpened by other means than medical needles, this thing is much, much sharper, down to the molecular levels. It's also much sturdier.”  
“I need to sterilize it-”  
“I know. But let's see if it works first.” With that, he connected the leads to the end of the needle.  
“All you need to do is penetrate the skin and collect the blood into a vial, right? So you don't need a syringe,”  
“Right,” Bruce confirmed, cleaning his glasses and looking at the contraption with mild worry.  
“I mean, I could find a way to connect that as well, but this is a prototype. If it works, I'll custom make a few modified ones, so we'll have them for emergencies.” Tony said with a shrug. “Anyway. I connected it to a signal generator and an audio converter. We need a very fast, very precise vibration. I'll do it with an audio signal. We can try different frequencies until we find something that works. Well?” He looked pointedly at the physicist. “What do you think?”  
Bruce was silent for a long moment. He finished cleaning his glasses and put them on, then sighed.

"I think it may work. But this is not you trying hastily assembled gear on yourself, Tony. This is a baby we're talking about.”  
“I **know**. And I also know it will work. It's my invention, my inventions always work.”  
“I would like to point out, Sir, that I can offer quite a few cases to the contrary-” Jarvis chimed in, the traitor, but Tony didn't let him finish.  
“-Look, either way, we **need** a solution. There is nothing here that can be dangerous for her even if it doesn't work, I'm not that much of an arrogant bastard. Let's at least try this.” he reasoned, waving the needle about.  
“Alright, Tony, Alright. But first, put that down and let me sterilize the whole thing. We can't risk an infection if we don't even know if antibiotics work on her,” Bruce gave in with another heavy sigh.  
A few moments of vigorous alcohol scrubbing and one trip to the autoclave later, they were finally ready. Tony sat down again, positioning himself so he could control the buttons on the generator. Across from him, Bruce pushed his glasses up his nose, took the rigged needle in one gloved hand, and swabbed Elli's tiny heel with alcohol.  
“Ok. Ready?”  
“Ready,” the physicist confirmed, taking a deep, steadying breath.  
“Ok, we'll start low and increase frequency until you see a reaction. In 3...2...1... Started.”  
Bruce tightened his hold as the needle started vibrating, and a high, faint hum filled the room. With another breath, he brought it gently to Elli's heel. Elli, for that matter, was starting to lose patience with them. She was still only half dressed and seemed to want a nap, and their poking and probing were not helping her demeanor. Tony kept a steady stream of babble directed at her as he adjusted the dials.  
“Nothing? Ok, increasing. Increasing. Still zilch? Again. Again. Feel free to stop me when it works. Again.....”  
“Stop!” Bruce's call came in time with Elli's surprised and offended wail. Tony froze.  
“It worked! Er- of course- of course it worked. Ha! I told you it would- whoa, easy there, Miss Fog Horn, don't squirm like that! Still baby-holding-novice here, remember? There, there, it's all gone, just a little poke, no harm, no foul, come on baby, don't look at me with those eyes, it's alright,” he tried to console her, bouncing her gently in his arms while Dr. Banner held her leg and collected the blood he needed. Which was red. The kid did have red blood, after all. He switched off the generator and dressed Elli in the rest of her outfit as Bruce took the equipment away and cleaned the table.  
“You can sleep now, Bluebird. There you go,” he placed her back into her carrier, where she complained for a moment, as if cross with the lack of arms around her, then settled tiredly.

"Well, it worked out in the end,” he groaned, throwing himself into a chair.

"Yes. At least we tackled that hurdle early on,” Bruce said, sinking into the opposite chair.  
“Yeah, I'll design a more efficient solution and send it for fabrication as soon as possible. Got all the blood you wanted?”  
“Yes. I stored it as well as I can, considering I don't know anything about it and how it reacts to temperature, changes in conditions and overall tampering,” Bruce said tiredly, rubbing his brow in a manner hinting on a headache. “And now, if you don't mind, I'll go have a nice, long break, make myself some tea and listen to some relaxed music, because this has been a **very** straining day, so far and there is only so much my self-control can take.” With that, the physicist pulled himself to his feet. Tony watched him shuffle away, and he may have felt a prickly of guilt. Maybe. Or it may have been the arc reactor.  
“Yeah, you go rest, buddy. If Jolly Green wants to come out and play, feel free to use that room I made for you. It's good to let him blow some steam every once in a while, you know,” he called after him.  
“Define good,” came Bruce's last call, before the elevator closed and swallowed his voice. Tony shook his head with a chuckle.  
“We really take a toll on him, don't we, Baby Blue. We'll have to be extra nice to him later. Remind me, ok?” he smiled at the sleepy child as he lifted the carrier from the table.  
“Alright, Kid. Now that all health necessities are dealt for, we can start doing some real work.“ His grin grew as he turned and marched deeper into his workshop.

"Let's get things cracking.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, the Flying Toasters ref is a small thing only children of the early 90s would get, I think. It was part of an old packege of screen-savers called After Dark, one of which was of tiny flying toasters zooming across the screen. There were a few versions of it, the later ones complete with a theme music that was later fitted with words to be the flying toasters theme song. You can watch it here:
> 
> Flying toasters- an older, original sound version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7nn4IXCeJc  
> The newest version of flying toasters with words at the bottom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk2hYw1sBAo 
> 
> XD just so you know where it comes from. I figured Tony would know.


End file.
